We Keep Meeting
by Servant of SHEVAL
Summary: At first glance, who would expect Cloud and Vincent to have anything in common? But their pasts intertwine more than even they realized. DOC spoilers. New Chapter: Speak of the Devil. Finally Complete, I mean it this time!
1. Guardian Angel

**Author's Beginning Note Thingy:** So this chapter is completely un-canon... then again, they don't tell you much about what happens pre-game, so it could be true, whoooooo! No, this certainly never occurred, but does that stop me? Noooo... It's a little awkward, I think, and kinda long, but it serves it's purpose, I hope, in setting up yet another long-winded, and hopefully artfully slashy fic ahead!

---

Sleeping wasn't the only thing he did. Yes, there were times when weeks went by without him knowing, when he was trapped within his own mind, in those terrible, terrible dreams. Nightmares. At the same time, there were weeks where he just _couldn't_ find sleep. It was in those weeks he got up, got out, wandered around...

...his exploration area was small. He didn't, obviously, just take a stroll around town, but he couldn't remain in that accursed little box the whole time. To be honest, it sometimes gave him claustrophobia. He'd walk the creaky halls of the mansion, look out of its dusty windows.

It was through these dusty windows that he once watched a little boy grow up. He'd never imagined then what kind of man that boy would grow up to be, or that he would ever know him for more than just an angelic little face.

The town had changed in the years where there weren't such interesting spectacles to watch. It had flourished almost into a small city, but never got quite there. Still, the children liked to fancy themselves city children, and as children often do, they picked up bad city-habits. No small towns had gangs, it just wasn't heard of, but this one did... sort of.

At first, it had been something to smirk, and shake his head at. The relatively innocent comings and goings of the little people in short skirts or baggy shirts, thinking they were 'all grown up' and 'totally badass'. Things he'd heard from snatches of their conversation if they'd ever drifted to close to his home.

At first, he thought nothing of it, the things they did... but as they aged, and a new group of young ones came about, the real fun began. As always, the older harassing the younger. Most of the younger were lucky enough, though, to have a brother or sister in the little cliques, which got them an automatic placement, with little to no trouble about it.

One such boy was not so lucky. The victim of several unfortunate circumstances: he had only a mother, no father was known, or had ever been seen by those watchful eyes... he obviously had a crush on what the children regarded as the 'prettiest girl in town', he had big dreams, and a small stature, as well as the most beautiful, innocent face a boy could ever dread to inherit. These qualities made him the local punching-bag.

There was a time, when he was still very young, that he'd been observed wandering, it seemed, aimlessly throughout the streets. Sometimes he would disappear behind a block of buildings, and reappear at the other side... at once, he did find a roundabout route to the mansion, but by then, the poor little thing was dragging himself along, and there were tears on his face. He was lost.

Other kids were about, but he either hadn't the will to ask them how he could get home, or already had and was turned down because of their cruel lack of sympathy. So he'd wandered here. He was looking fearfully up at the mansion, renewed sobs shaking his small frame, and not looking where he was going that caused him to trip, and fall into the dirt path outside the front gate to the building. There he stayed for a long time...

For the first time in... who knew how long, must've been more than twenty years, he ventured out of the mansion, and into the dimming sunlight. A shadow-clad figure bent over the fallen boy. Curiosity had driven him to the boy's side, and now pity drove him to do what he did next.

With the utmost care, he lifted the limp figure into his arms...

Half-asleep, the boy became vaguely aware of what was going on around him... he heard something that sounded like very soft footsteps. A shadow. Something picked him up, and began to carry him somewhere. Dimly, in the back of his mind, he realized this might be a very bad thing, but... the little boy didn't have the energy to bother trying to get away, or find out who it was.

He was put back down on something hard, and the shadow and the warmth it brought him went away with the fading footsteps. Then he forced his blue eyes open, and tried to look at it, but there was nothing to see... He looked down and beheld the familiar door mat of his own house. How did he get here? Hadn't he just been... he looked over towards the mansion. Had something just moved inside that window? No, couldn't have been... or maybe…

The startled boy gasped, and sidled up to the door, reaching up for the bell, and hoping mom would be home to answer. Who had...? What had happened? How did he get back home from all the way up the road, when he was sure he passed out at the mansion? His mother came. He went inside.

It was not the last time that happened. Similar things occurred. Once, years later, someone had stolen his backpack, with all his schoolbooks and everything in it. He'd torn his room apart looking for it, as well as all the horrible places of town where he imagined it might have been someone's cruel decision to hide it... still nothing.

He'd given up at late evening when it was too dark to do anything anymore, when he heard a strange thump on the ground outside. He glanced out his window, and glimpsed a dark shape retreating into the night. He rushed down the stairs, and to the front door to pursue it, when he fell flat on his face on the ground... having tripped over his backpack.

A door slammed up the road near the mansion. He looked around. The shadow was gone.

He didn't know why he did it. Didn't know why he seemed to care so much for this strange boy he didn't even know the name of. But nevertheless, he watched him grow up. And watched out for him as he did so.

The most interesting of events occurred. The blonde followed that girl he liked out into the mountains one day, and on a simple gut instinct, he did too. He saw the bridge collapse, the girl fall, the boy fall...

His heart skipped a beat, he wouldn't let that happen. He couldn't save them both, but thank the Ancients he'd been there for one. He caught the boy's hand, and broke his fall with his own body. The poor thing was still knocked unconscious, giving him the chance to get the hell out of there before anyone woke up.

Time passed. All three of those involved had eventually recovered from their injuries during the bridge incident... the girl had taken the longest to heal up, and that took a toll on the boy. He never told anyone what he thought had saved him... he hadn't seen much anyway, the only sensible description he could ever come up with was a 'bloody ghost', but not only did that sound crazy, it didn't sound like something that would have saved him anyway. However, none of that stopped him from being persistent. For some time now, he'd been trying to join up with the little group that she was a part of. They alone knew the truth, for she had told them, that he had tried to save her from the fall, and was not in fact the cause of it.

Still, they were wary to let this particular outsider in.

"Give me your worst!" he said loudly one day, standing at the well just down the street. The quiet summer day carried the echoes up to a cracked window on the second story of the shadowy building.

"Anything, anything you want, I promise I'll do it." he said again.

"The worst thing we can think of?" some of the people glanced between one another.

"Whatever it is." he confirmed.

There was silence. The group drew together to consult... and finally came up with the verdict:

"Stay a night in the mansion!"

Those eyes in the second story window perked up a little bit. Oho, this could be fun... but closer inspection showed that it was the blonde boy they were talking to. Ah, his sense of humor would have to wait for another day, and another child to scare out of his wits. Still, though, the urge to maybe… meet this person face-to-face for once was strong…

"Hah!" he scoffed haughtily, "That's the _best_ you can do? Grow up, all the legends about that place are fake."

"We'll see..." said a wary voice. "Anyways, you're still not supposed to go there, so..."

"You're going easy on me." he protested.

"Is that a bad thing?"

Truth be told, ever since the backpack incident, and certainly after some of the other strange events that had followed, he'd always wanted to check the place out... this was the best excuse.

He went up there after nightfall, flashlight, and pocketknife in hand. At the front door, he'd already found his doubts again... but the whole group was watching... he at least had to go in until they went away, to make it look good. So he did, passing through the creaky door, strangely free of cobwebs... he looked on the ground, and saw paths through the dust... footsteps leading over to a room on the right, which included an open door and stairs leading to the basement. That was where the footstep-path ended.

The boy swallowed down a lump in his throat, and decided to go in the other direction. He'd had the luck to find a nice bedroom on the first story, where he could camp out in. He didn't particularly want to go onto the second story, he wasn't sure how stable it was.

Looking around the room, he found it fairly average: two beds, a shared nightstand, a mirror, a closet. Flashlight in hand, he moved toward one of the beds, and lightly sat down.

"This isn't so bad." he whispered to himself, "This place was originally meant for living in, after all..." he reasoned with himself, allowing the necessary relaxation to lye back on the pillow.

"Yes, indeed. Not bad at all." said a deep voice from... everywhere? Nowhere?

With a yelp, he fumbled, and dropped the light. It clattered on the wood floor, rolled, and went out. His breathing quickened as he reached for the knife in his pocket.

"Please don't be alarmed..." said the voice, coming closer. With a click the blade was out, and the boy gasped.

"Ow...!"

"That's dangerous. You're a little young to be playing with a thing like that." the voice said again.

"No! I'm... I'm... who _are_ you?" he asked. This wasn't a voice he'd recognized...

"That doesn't matter. Here, let me see your hand."

The boy's wide blue eyes darted around in the darkness. There was nothing to see... nothing at all. The room was an overwhelming pitch dark. There was no starlight, no flashlight, no moon... the only thing...

...drawing closer after he had held his arm out blindly, two small red glints. They paused in midair not far in front of him, and he felt a warmth on his hand, other than the blood. He gasped.

"I said don't be afraid." said the voice again. A tear of fabric... something soft was being wrapped around the cut.

The boy swallowed, "If you won't tell me who you are... then what are you _doing_ here?"

"Right now, I am bandaging your hand... but I could easily ask the same of you..." the red... red eyes... the red eyes stared down at him pointedly, and he felt sweat drip down the side of his face under their stern glare.

"I... I... my friends dared me."

"I see..." the eyes turned back down as the hands of the body they belonged to tied a firm knot in the fabric around the cut, "Well... that was quite stupid of you to come in here. What if I was anyone other than who I am?"

"Who are you?" he asked again.

"I already said, it doesn't matter." was the reply.

The blue eyes looked down at his hand, not actually seeing it. A finger ran over the dampening fabric, then the eyes looked back up. "Thank you." he said.

"Don't worry about it."

A silence lapsed... he couldn't be sure, but he thought he heard footsteps fading... the eyes went away.

"Hey, wait, don't go."

"I'm not leaving... I intend to stay with you until morning. Make sure none of your... 'friends' tries anything."

He nodded. Then stopped. "Wait, why? How do you know them? Or me, for that matter?"

"I see things." he replied cryptically. There was no response from the boy to that, so the man continued, unsure why he was now willing to reveal his little secret. Probably because of the slim chances of ever seeing this boy again, "Haven't you ever wondered... about some of those strange, coincidental things that happened to you?" there was an almost desperate note in his voice... desperate for thanks, for recognition... for the ability to be able to help someone.

After a moment, the boy smiled. "Yes..." he began, unsurely, then confirmed in a stronger voice, "Yes. That was you?"

The eyes bobbed up and down slightly, as the figure nodded.

"Who are you?" he asked again.

There was no reply.

Sometime after that conversation, he must've fallen asleep, because the next thing he remembered was opening his eyes, and seeing the sun shining through a window, lighting from behind a dead rose in a vase on the nightstand. He sat up. His knife and his flashlight were on the pillow next to him, and he'd been tucked into bed. There was no-one anywhere near him...

He smiled vaguely, looking down at his hand, which was wrapped in a very unique-looking crimson fabric, but then, it might have been that color because of the blood. He headed out. So there was someone in this mansion, looking out for him. He hadn't dreamed it... had he? He couldn't have dreamed it... but he still wouldn't tell anyone. In a way, whether he knew him or not, he'd always regarded this enigmatic person as his guardian angel.


	2. Speak of the Devil

Nigh on thirty years spent buried deep in a coffin, and Vincent had never once felt lonely...

...that was, until now.

He didn't remember exactly when it had happened, it was something he noticed in retrospect, but the little blonde boy whose name he didn't know just... wasn't around.

He thought back hard in the months following the first time he'd noticed... on how and why he could possibly be _lonely_ when he and the child hadn't had any sort of connection whatsoever. Nothing. That, and he tried to remember when, exactly, he had gone.

The last time Vincent had seen him was late one night. He'd taken a very, very rare excursion out of the actual ShinRa manor building, and sat perched on the rooftop, watching the stars. They were beautiful this night... even out here, away from the lights of a large city such as Midgar or Junon, they seemed brighter than was normal. He knew, somehow, he'd never forget them. Something, though, perhaps the hand of fate, had guided him, torn his gaze away from that glittering spray of diamonds to watch down below.

Two children, mere specks of darkness off in the distance, sat on the top of the old well in the center of town square. He didn't hear their voices, but Vincent would recognize that head of blonde spikes anywhere. The other was feminine... clad in a green sun dress.

They talked for a time, he could see them turning to one another, hands moving in conversation. Didn't know what they said, didn't really care to hear. But at last, as the twilight was deepening into dark, the girl hopped off the edge, waved to her fellow, and walked away.

The blonde, however, lingered... his eyes, visible through the distance, that bizarre bright blue that stood out more than natural human eyes should, glued to the majestic night sky. Vincent thought, all of a sudden, that the boy was rather like a star himself... from the blue light of his eyes, to the comical gold of his hair, reminiscent of how a three-year-old might scribble out a star on a piece of paper. The thought was amusing, made him laugh softly to himself, and almost miss the change of direction in the boy's attention down below.

When he looked again, the child's eyes were on him... or so he thought, and, panicked, he ducked below the fake front put on the roof, peeking out only minutes later as the boy below turned, wrenching his eyes from the mansion, and heading back home.

Vincent retreated, not long later that evening, back into the dark, and when he came out again, there were no stars to meet him

-

Cloud left Nibelheim... it and all its mysteries (rather, it's only mystery) soon faded into mere memory for him. Only a few truths of the town remained clear: Mom, Tifa, and ShinRa mansion. Which was perhaps why he was so ecstatic to return there.

Two years had passed since he'd been home, and the treatment of a scrawny, effeminate young blonde boy was the same in the ranks of Midgar's military training facility as it was in the rural streets of Nibelheim.

But he found a new protector in Soldier, and so all thought of his old one soon vanished. The memories were only rekindled when he got back to Nibelheim...

On a mission with Zack, and General Sephiroth himself, Cloud, already awestruck by the company he had, couldn't remember ever feeling more amazed as they rolled into town and he looked up at the looming ShinRa mansion. Distorted and darkened through the visor of his helmet, it was still a piece of work to be marveled over. He scanned each window of the building scrutinously, a glimmer of remembrance sparking in the depths of his mind. He was looking for something... something that would also be looking for him through one of those windows. It was almost there, almost at the forefront of his consciousness, almost where he could reach it when someone clapped a firm hand on his back, and he jumped.

"All ready, private?" came Zack's smiling voice. Cloud grinned back, tilting his head up so that it could be seen over the high collar of the uniform, and Zack laughed, leading him in.

-

Why?

Why did it hurt so much? Why was this happening to him? The burns from the fire he hadn't noticed until after he woke up in the ShinRa lab stung like the fire itself each time he was plunged back into the cold tube of mako. He was completely unaware... of where he was, of who that second person screaming with him was, of anything. He just wanted to know _why_, Ancients, _why_ did it hurt so much?

The sharp, cold knives eating at his flesh, the intruding needles that poked him in bad places. His head spun with pain and disorientation.

And why didn't someone come to save him? Someone always would! Whether it be Zack, or his Angel, or anyone, _someone_, _please_!

Through all of it, and at the end of every night, after the day's events had already driven him mad, past the point of any coherent thought save one: that he wished this accursed mansion would have burned to the ground with the rest of Nibelheim.

-

He swore he'd never go back.

He had gone back.

It wasn't exactly of or against his own will, he and his companions had just... stumbled across Nibelheim in their travels. Nibelheim, all of it. Not destroyed, not burned... they went in, and found no answers anywhere. So the only place left to search for them, was the mansion.

He hadn't objected when they suggested to go into the basement. He didn't say anything, he just went, and when they got down there, they found the morbid crypt-room, full of open coffins... all open, save one.

Something made him go toward it. Something made him want to see inside... he placed his hands firmly on the smooth wood, began to push, but it wouldn't budge.

"What are you doing?" Aeris had said.

"Are you sure you want to..." Tifa trailed off.

"Shh." he responded, leaning close, "There's noises... someone inside?" He banged on the lid, making the girls jump. "It sounds like someone trying to get out!"

And then it opened.

His breath was stolen away when he looked at the very familiar, very _alive_ figure inside. Those cold red eyes... and his body was swathed in that curious red fabric.

For a long time, the two stared silently at eachother, before the red-cloaked man said, "...never seen you before. You must leave."

Cloud stopped. He'd never seen him... but he was sure... this must be... who else could it have been? "You were having a nightmare." he said simply. The man had dark circles under his eyes, and certainly appeared as if he'd just woken up.

"You'll have bad dreams if you sleep in a place like this." Aeris shuddered, surveying the macabre setting of the room, chains, dead bodies...

"How bad was your dream?" Tifa asked, stepping forward a little worriedly.

The man almost laughed, "A nightmare..." he said it bitterly, but with a familiarity in his voice, "My long sleep has given me time to atone."

"What are you saying?" asked Cloud, perhaps a little too much emotion evident in his voice. It made the strange man look up. He'd always idly wondered, that after having been saved so many times by this man, he was sure it was him, even the voice was the same, and since he was indeed still here, why he hadn't done anything when Sephiroth...

"I have nothing to say to strangers." the man in the coffin said harshly. "Get out. This mansion is the beginning of your nightmare."

Cloud frowned. Stranger his ass. "You can say that again." he growled.

At this, the man in the coffin looked up curiously. He wasn't sure, but there just might've been a hint of amusement in his eyes, "Hmmm? What do you know...?"

"No, it's not a dream." Cloud said almost mockingly, "It's for real. Sephiroth has lost his mind, he found the secrets hidden in this basement..."

Yet again he was cut off, by a startled, "Sephiroth?!"

Cloud looked up, speaking, as the man also continued so that they said almost in unison, "You know Sephiroth?!"

The two girls looked between eachother confusedly.

Vincent rose gracefully from his bed, standing on the very back edge of the coffin. "You start first." he said in a commanding voice.

Cloud glanced back at Aeris and Tifa, then back up at Vincent. Despite the trust he once had in the enigmatic individual, he didn't give him any more than bare details... if he really knew Sephiroth, it was probably all he needed to know anyway, without delving into Cloud's own personal being, and experience.

"That's how it was..." he finished up.

"So Sephiroth found out how he was created five years ago... and about the Jenova Project?" he whispered, "He was missing... but has recently reappeared. He has taken many lives, and is seeking the Promised Land." he looked down, an expression of deep concentration on his face.

"Now it's your turn." Cloud said determinedly a moment later. He _had_ to find out what this man's deal was... so many years of wondering... it had to be the same guy, it _had_ to. He didn't recognize him, it seemed, or maybe he was just hiding it. He shook his head.

The man looked up. "Sorry, I cannot speak." he said simply.

"That's dirty!" cawed the girl in pink.

"I'm disappointed..." huffed the other.

"Hearing your stories has added upon me yet another sin." he calmly explained, dropping back down into the coffin, and sitting. "More nightmares will come to me now. More than I previously had. Now... please leave." He lay down, and before Cloud could protest, covered himself up again with the lid.

"Hey!" the blonde exclaimed, running forward and banging hard on the wood again, "No, you can't just... come out!"

"You're still here?" came the smooth reply, as the lid was opened just enough to let the man's head peek out."

"At least tell us your name..." he begged.

The man watched the all-too-familiar face of the boy, no... he was not a boy anymore. But he was still asking the same questions. He sighed, giving in... he mind as well. "I was with... the ShinRa Manufacturing Department in Administrative Research." he explained, "Otherwise known as... the Turks."

"The Turks?!" he exclaimed.

"Formerly of the Turks." Vincent stressed, "I have no affiliation with ShinRa now." yet one more thing plagued his curiosity, "...and you?"

"Cloud Strife, formerly of Soldier." he said proudly.

"You were also with ShinRa...?" Vincent asked. So that must be where he'd gone in the years the boy had disappeared, "Then do you know... Lucrecia...?"

"Who?" Cloud asked. What a strange question.

"Lucrecia..." Vincent repeated hopelessly, while watching Cloud already begin to shake his head. "The woman who gave birth to Sephiroth?" he tried again.

"Gave birth...?" asked Cloud in wonder, "But wasn't... Jenova Sephiroth's mother?"

"That isn't completely wrong, but just a theory." Vincent said, with what little knowledge he'd been granted of the experiments, "He was born from a beautiful lady. That lady was Lucrecia. She was an assistant to Dr. Hojo of the Jenova project." his voice lowered to a whisper as he looked away with a strained expression, "Beautiful Lucrecia..."

"A human experiment?" asked Cloud softly.

"There was no way to cancel the experiment." Vincent added, "I couldn't stop her. That was my sin." he looked down. "I let the one I love, the one I respected the most, face the worst..." his tone dripped with self-loathing, and he clenched his teeth visibly.

"So your punishment was to sleep? That's... kinda weird..." Said the girl in pink timidly.

Vincent shot her a quick glare, and just as quickly pulled the coffin lid back up, and lay down.

"You scared him away..." Cloud whispered to her, and she watched him apologetically. He turned forward, and gently tapped on the coffin again.

"Let me sleep." came the stern reply.

He frowned, "But..." his voice was so desperately curious, so low that he wasn't sure it was audible through the thick wood of the coffin, "...your name..." and knocked once more.

There was a moment of thoughtful silence, before a deep voice from within said "Vincent Valentine." and then "Let me sleep." the same.

Cloud gave a brief, relieved smile, running the name through his head, memorizing it, attaching it as a caption to all the bizarre snapshots he had of the dark man from his childhood. After a moment, though, the smile faded and he turned around with a look of befuddlement. Tifa just shrugged, "Maybe we should... go?"

The ex-Soldier looked mournfully back at the coffin, and tried one more time. No reply. His face fell, and with a soft sigh, he turned again to his companions and shrugged. What more could they do? The three silently left the room, Cloud glancing back only once as he closed the door, though he left it open just a crack...

"Wait!" came an echo, that made him whirl around. It was Vincent, he couldn't help a slightly triumphant smile.

"If I go with you..." started the ex-Turk, "...will I meet Hojo?"

Cloud thought about this for a while, "Dunno... but we're after him and Sephiroth, so I guess sooner or later..." he trailed off.

Vincent's eyes glazed over and he turned slightly away... "Lucrecia..." Cloud thought he heard whispered... "All right. I've decided to go with you." he reported, turning back.

"What, you're coming with us?" Tifa repeated, looking confused.

"Sure is a quick change of heart, huh?" Aeris smiled, turning to Cloud, "I'll head back up to the inn, and tell the others, all right? You three see what you can still do here."

Cloud nodded, and watched the girl run off. When he looked back, Vincent had taken her place at his side. "Being a former Turk, I may be of help to you." he said flatly.

"All right." Cloud agreed, looking up at the taller man. Thank the Ancients he was here... thank the Ancients he had survived. He couldn't help a smirk... somewhere deep down, he just _knew_ Vincent recognized him... but he'd work that secret out eventually. Everything good about his hometown had burnt up in the fire, or been cut down by Sephiroth's blade... and that dark memorial that was left behind... even that had been covered up by ShinRa's lies, the city of actors that now lay aboveground. But through it all... Cloud thanked the Ancients that his Angel, no... that Vincent, that was his name, had survived. The one constant left in his life from a more innocent time.

---

**Author's Ending Note Thingy:** Did I say I was done with this fic? XD I lied! This chapter was originally meant to be published in chronological order with the rest of the main body of We Keep Meeting, but when I finished it way back then I didn't like it. One day (today) I decided it deserved a revisit, and so here it is: spruced up a bit. Yay for canon dialogue, and I hope you enjoy!


	3. Bedrest

"Ugh..." Cloud rolled over slightly, and held his head in his hands. He felt a bandage touch the side of his face at the same time his hand did... his other hand felt a bandage already on his face when he touched it.

He opened his eyes, squinting under the harsh light. He thought he saw someone there, and said with a hoarse throat, "You could've turned out the lights..."

"I am sorry." came the voice of who was there, and receding footsteps, and the lights were flicked off.

Cloud sighed, and leaned back, opening his eyes and staring at the inn's ceiling. He became aware that one eye was covered with a bandage, and looked at his arms... both were heavily wrapped, one all the way from shoulder to hand, the other just around the forearm. He sighed, feeling a stiffness in his chest, no doubt a cracked rib. "What?" he asked aloud to whoever the person in the room with him was, "A cure materia didn't do enough?"

"Apparently not. Besides, the others didn't want you bouncing right up and telling us to continue again, so they've wrapped you up so that you would rest while they go out shopping." came the response. Vincent bent over Cloud as he lay on the bed, a black and red shadow in his vision.

Cloud smirked, "Bastards."

Vincent returned with a sly smile, and sat back down, "I've stayed behind to accompany you, though. To make sure you don't, like they expected, just get up and go out on your own."

"Like you always did, right?" Cloud muttered, turning over.

"Like I what?" Came Vincent's slightly confused tone.

Cloud sighed heavily with frustration. "That's what's been pissing me off about you!" he said, "Why don't you just admit to it?"

"Admit to what?" Vincent asked, honestly confused, and somewhere in the back of his mind, already wondering how he could've managed to piss off his leader so soon.

"That you were the man in ShinRa mansion... when I was just a child, living in Nibelheim..." Cloud turned over, looking back at Vincent hopefully.

What an odd, and out-of-the-blue course of conversation... and so sudden! Vincent thought a moment, then slowly smiled, closing his eyes and tilting his head down so that most of his face disappeared behind the high collar of his cloak, and his hair fell down to cover the rest. "Yes... yes I did."

A smile spread across the blonde's face. "I knew it..."

"I knew it too." said Vincent, "From the moment I opened my coffin. It's quite an odd coincidence, don't you think?" he looked up again, an amused glint in his eye.

"Yeah, really..." Cloud muttered, "But you never bothered to mention you knew me before."

"I didn't see it fit to bring up such unpleasant childhood memories right in front of your friends." he explained.

Cloud laughed quietly. "Lived in the same town, and met up again with the same purpose..." he said, "...ironic, no?" he attempted to lighten the mood slightly, "Despite the fact that we knew each other before. We keep meeting, and the same things keep happening to us..."

Vincent frowned, and looked out the window, "You shouldn't be wishing to experience any of the same things I have." he said.

"I'm not." Cloud pointed out, "I was just mentioning..."

"Well, there are still several things that have happened to me that had not yet happened to you." Vincent continued more to himself than to Cloud, "Let's hope it stays that way." with this, it seemed that he receded back into himself yet again, putting on that air he so often had, that just said he didn't want to be talked to.

So Cloud gave up, sighing, and laying back. At least the beds in the inn at Rocket Town were soft, unlike the ones in Corel... or Nibelheim for that matter, though there was nothing wrong with them, it was somewhat disconcerting to have been back there at all. He looked away from the gunman, who was likewise already looking away from him, and mentally cursed the damn monsters at the Mt. Nibel reactor.

---

**Author's Ending Note Thingy:** So I had no idea what I was doing with this chapter... there was sorta a plotbunny of Vincent looking after Cloud when he's hurt, a repeat of events kind of thing, but that's all. I was gonna make it longer, but I didn't know where to go, so... short chapter, yay!


	4. Haunt

Vincent loved to sit out and stare at the moon. It reminded him of her... of a single bead on her pearl necklace. One could arguably say that almost everything reminded him of her: a flower by the side of the road, the steady beat of rain on the roof of an inn, the gurgling of a passing stream...

The perceptive ones could tell when something reminded him of her. He would stop, pause, his eyes lingering a little on the something that had caught his attention. And then he would smile. It was strange that he smiled, since he did it so seldom... his mouth would just curve softly up, or sometimes you wouldn't see this smile at all; it was hidden behind the collar of his cloak. But you could just see it in his eyes: They 'd seem to squint just a little bit, then seem to water, and shine a moment, before that smile vanished, disappeared even more quickly than it had come into being, and his head would hang a little more than it had before.

Cloud was one of those perceptive ones... Aeris too, though she was so shy she'd never ask him about it. And one couldn't be sure, but sometimes even Cid, when in a state of quiet observation, would notice Vincent's activities.

"Damn, Valentine, get yer head outta the clouds." he would always say, accompanied occasionally by Aeris' sweet, chiming little giggle.

Cloud, however, preferred a more subtle approach, and one night while celebrating in the Gold Saucer on the recent defeat of ShinRa at Rocket Town, he decided to take advantage of the situation. And the situation stood thus:

Aeris had been the wise one to turn in early, and she had missed quite a spectacle. Barret and Cid had gotten roaring drunk together, and started reminiscing loudly on the 'good ol' days', and all the while filling the room with the scent of their beer-saturated breath. The bartender on staff at the Haunted Inn had long since gotten off his shift, and Tifa had taken over. She had her hands full fending off a tipsy Yuffie from further underage alcohol exposure. Cait Sith was playing chess with the ghosts, and Nanaki had also long since left, driven out by the stench and the din for the quiet of his own room.

Cloud, himself emboldened by a couple of small glasses of rum, sought out the missing gunman. He found him in the little shop adjacent to the lobby of the inn, his usually pallid cheeks flushed by the very large, but near-empty glass of red wine he held delicately in his claw hand. The other loosely gripped the handle of the Peacemaker, his gun, which was pointed with flawless aim at a limp Mr. Hangman.

"Hey, Vincent." called the swordsman from the door, making the ex-Turk flinch in surprise, his drink sloshing around dangerously in his glass as he turned around. He still had the coordination to turn a slight fumble of the firearm into a flourished spin back into it's space on his hip.

"Yes?"

"I wanted to talk to you-..." he started, though his sentence was broken by a loud crash from the other room, and Tifa's voice calling out:

"Yuffie! That's not fair, they have the Mr. Hangman robot guards turned off at night, you can't steal anything now, it'd be like cheating!"

Following this, the young ninja came hop-skipping into the room, and heavy footsteps signaled the imminent arrival of the fighter.

"...-in private." Cloud finally finished off.

Vincent shrugged, stepping out of the way as Tifa came charging past, aimed at the girl currently looting the materia stores. He tilted his head up, and downed his drink, setting the empty glass down on the counter, where it was promptly knocked off by Yuffie in her struggle against Tifa. "All right." he agreed, despite a slight wince at the breaking glass.

He followed Cloud up the stairs to his room, and sat down with a slight bounce on the far bed, "What's this about?" he asked.

The mercenary smirked, himself sitting down on the bed next to the one Vincent had chosen. He couldn't help but be slightly amused by the gunman's behavior... apparently thirty years in a coffin had completely destroyed any and all alcohol tolerance that he had built up in his youth, if one glass of wine could make the usually stoic man this... giddy.

"It's a touchy subject with you, I know..." Cloud began warningly, though the ex-Turk didn't seem at all affected or apprehensive after receiving this news, "...but about Lucrecia..."

It was only then that his eyes fell, "Oh... Cloud, I..." he started.

"Don't really want to talk about it, I know... well it's not... _really_ about her." the ex-Soldier attempted to rephrase.

Vincent slowly glanced up again, "What do you mean?"

Oh, had he ever chosen the right time... Cloud knew he would _never_ be this open to conversation on this subject if he wasn't as tipsy as he was. There was a small nagging at the back of his mind that maybe this would qualify as taking advantage of him, but... no, not really. "Well you think about her alot..." he began, and Vincent nodded.

"Why?" Cloud asked, "If the memory hurts so much, why do you choose to remember it?"

"Because I love her too much to forget."

Oh, Cloud knew what that felt like... but he also knew what the opposite, his own suggestion was like. All too well.

"And there were so many memories... you can't just stop them, let alone stop them all when they incorporate so many things..."

Ah, now they were on the right track. Cloud listened intently as he went on.

"...if I see something that reminds me of her, then she'll be what I'm thinking about, it's... a natural thought process." he shrugged.

"What sorts of things remind you of her?" Cloud asked, trying to lighten the gravity of the situation, while not sounding drunk, because Vincent certainly didn't. The boy was still, however, amazed that he was getting this much out of him in one sitting.

"Many things..." Vincent smiled, "Nibelheim, for one..." he started, "That, after all, was where I met her... the sky in summer, that was the color of her eyes. Where we are now, even, the Gold Saucer... we saw a fireworks show from here, long ago." he explained, "Mountains, because we went on a hike through them once."

Cloud tried not to chuckle at the rather cliché romantic things the couple seemed to have done together. "Is there anything that _doesn't_ remind you of Lucrecia?" he asked jokingly, that much he was not capable of holding back.

Vincent raised an eyebrow and smirked, "Try me."

"All right..." Cloud began, thinking, "...uh, birds."

"...like the ones that sung at sundown on the night I arrived in Nibelheim." Vincent finished off.

"Okay, grass."

"She got grass stains on her knees the day we went hiking."

"A book."

"I would spend my time reading when she was busy."

Cloud bit his lower lip slightly, thinking... he had to come up with something that was harder, "Fire." he tried as a filler.

"That we sat in front of one day to dry off after it had rained." he answered.

"Werewolves." the ex-Soldier said with a defiant smirk.

A similar expression was on Vincent's face, because the boy could not have mentioned a more obscure, yet miraculously relevant topic, "She joked about them after finding out that the name of my gun was Quicksilver... thought it sounded like it fired silver bullets."

Cloud frowned, but assured himself that the ex-Turk had only gotten lucky. This next one Vincent would probably consider cheating, but... "Me."

"Your father ran the jewelry store where I purchased the ring I proposed to her with..." he said softly, "And your mother worked at the restaurant where we went on our first date."

Cloud winced... a tender spot… but Vincent seemed unphased. The strangeness of this whole conversation was only now just beginning to settle on him He glanced back over at the other bed, which Vincent was by now lying down on. "Red XIII." he offered.

"Cosmo Canyon... the site where we watched the Gold Saucer fireworks from..." Vincent answered, rather proud of himself that his younger companion had not yet been able to come up with something that didn't remind him of Lucrecia, though he did idly wonder if that went to show for how much he was obsessed... in the silence that followed, caused by Cloud's current lack of ideas, Vincent mentioned, "They really are spectacular, taking into consideration the advances in technology that might have come along since when we saw them. You really should look at them yourself sometime."

Cloud shrugged. "I'll get around to it." he answered, still combing his mind for something, and coming up blank... it must've been a result of the alcohol, he wasn't as creative. He sighed frustratedly, and glanced over at Vincent yet again, hoping he wasn't boring the man, as he was now resting his head on a pillow, looking at Cloud sideways with drooping eyelids... he was probably just tired from being slightly drunk.

"Uhhh..." he gulped, thinking of some of the things that he'd actually seen Vincent stop and look at before, things he was already sure reminded the man of Lucrecia, but maybe it would pass the time until he came up with something better, "...the stars...?"

Vincent blinked, seemed to ponder it a moment, and Cloud was almost sure he'd found something there, before his excitement was broken as the gunman spoke... but what he said was unexpected enough anyway.

"Those actually remind me of you, Cloud..." he mused.

With an eyebrow raised, the boy asked, "Why?"

"Hmm..." Vincent thought a moment, as if trying to rationalize his own decision, "They're incredibly powerful, beautiful things... but so wild is their energy that we cannot harness it. Yet beyond this, they shine so, so brightly, and on earth a tiny speck in a dark sky is all we see..." seeing the confusion on the boy's face at this description, he elaborated, "You have great potential, Cloud. You're a strong leader, steadfast, and determined, and nothing I've yet seen can bind you. You try incredibly hard, and yet... your accomplishments, I've noticed, even by our own teammates, are seldom recognized."

Cloud opened his mouth to reply, then closed it and looked down. Well, maybe it didn't apply to his current teammates, bit this was certainly true of his Soldier days... where he didn't get anywhere because he was some nobody from a hick-town... he looked over at Vincent again and swallowed.

"That sounds more like you than me." was his only relevant reply.

"Maybe so..." the ex-Turk answered cryptically with a yawn. In just a few minutes longer of watching him, the man had drifted off to sleep, and Cloud was left alone in the silence.

There was a knock at the door that broke the boy out of his thoughts, "Aeris?" he asked, getting up, "What's wrong?"

"Do you want to go on a date?" she asked, a sparkle in her emerald eyes.

"What?" Cloud asked, surprised at the offer.

"Da-a-ate." she over emphasized the word, "Or have you never gone on one?"

Cloud blushed and looked at the floor. The answer was... no, he really hadn't ever gone on a date.

Aeris laughed at that, "Oh, come on, let's go." he smiled, and grabbed his hand to drag him out. "Wh- Aeris!" Cloud protested, before being forced from the room.

Vincent, half awake through the conversation silently smirked, and opened his eyes. "Have fun, Cloud..." he breathed as the ex-Soldier left.

-

That night, Cloud really learned, first hand, what Vincent meant by the fireworks being spectacular... for if the ex-Turk could say that having seen them thirty years ago, from the great distance of Cosmo Canyon, he had no idea what it was like viewing them now from the gondola that carried passengers all the way around the Gold Saucer, and even right through the display... he thought, as he returned to his room that night, Aeris at his side, that he, too, would now always be reminded of the one he loved when he saw fireworks.

Aeris left, and went to her own bed, in the rooms where the girls were a few doors down from Cloud's own. The swordsman went inside, and saw to his surprise that Vincent was gone. As he lay himself down in bed, and pulled up the covers, he thought to himself that maybe the next time they all had a chance to just rest, relax, and have a little fun like this, he would drag the gunman out of whatever dark corner he was hiding in at that time, and bring him along for the show. After all... he deserved to see it again in earnest, Lucrecia or no.

-

After the fiasco with the Temple of the Ancients, Cloud pushed extra hard to find the Forgotten City. They traveled well into the night to reach it, nobody daring to speak as the blonde fretted about the well being of Aeris. It was one night, when Vincent stopped, his eyes lingering on the stars above, and an unknown force tugging on the corners of his lips, that when Cid shouted, "Get your head out of the clouds, Valentine." it was where his head really was.

---

**Author's Ending Note Thingy:** Yay for double meanings! XD I can't stand myself for pulling my last one there... oh, this was a fun chapter to write. Semi-drunkenness is always fun to write for. Yet again, my devoted self stole the TV away from my mom to replay the date section with Aeris, and get the dialogue from it just right... or at least close. Any discrepancies is me exercising my ever-present and stubborn artistic license. Hope you liked!


	5. Nightmares

It was acute sense of hearing that woke Vincent from his restful sleep this night, not the more common cause of that occurrence: Nightmares. His eyes simply opened, staring up into the dim dark that was the top of his small grey tent. What was that noise? The frail structure shook with the hurricane-like winds that blew outside, but it was not the wind that made that noise...

He sat up, pushing the blankets off of himself, and looked around. It was a human whining coming from a tent nearby. Something flashed. Lightning... great. The gunman tore the door down, disregarding the zipper for it's use, and stepped out into the gale. Long raven hair was whipped about in all directions, now that it wasn't even tied up with that red ribbon. He looked around, searching for the source of the sound again amidst the rush of the air.

His tent door flapped loudly, and he carefully closed it, looking up at the sky. The moonlight was just peeking through the faraway clouds as the celestial body began to set on the horizon, at this point about even in the sky with the flaming red body of meteor. The wind was blowing the stormclouds away, but their lightning could still be seen in the distance.

The whine again... he looked back. It was from the tent right next to his. He frowned. If this was Nanaki with another thorn in his paw or something... the ex-Turk proceeded forward, and quietly slipped open the zipper of the tent, to look inside. To his surprise, it was Cloud's sleeping form that greeted him.

The mercenary was sprawled out inside the tiny building, his blankets were askew, and his body was mostly uncovered by them, revealing a simple T-shirt and boxer shorts as his nighttime sleeping attire. He writhed and moaned within the small floorspace that was taken up by his bed. A look of pity overcame the ex-Turk's face, and he stepped forward inside, bare feet carefully placed on the relatively slippery plastic floor.

-

The images taunted him often. Familiar faces that just flashed by amidst fire and screams... only occasionally did the voices come with them, the chiding, mocking voices that blamed him for everything, and laughed and laughed and laughed...

He saw his mother, dead when Nibelheim had been destroyed. He saw Tifa's father, and Tifa as she was at that time, bent weeping over him. She would look up and see him, rage in her mahogany eyes. Zack's lifeless face would be watching him, his body upside down and twisted into an unnatural position after his assault on Sephiroth.

Zack appeared most often, in many ways. Often it was just him like that, sometimes it was followed up by him floating limp in a capsule of green liquid mako, but his silvery eyes were always the same, opened wide in a last silent gasp or scream, though his lips never parted.

Recently, Aeris had joined the images. She would be kneeling, just as she was the last time he saw her, and all of a sudden a red stain would spread from her heart, leaking down her dress and staining her beautiful skin as she reached up to touch it. She never said anything as a voice, only her stunning green eyes would meet his before she fell forward into darkness.

Occasionally, Sephiroth, too, would appear, but he was by far the rarest apparition among them. But the dreams always ended the same way, the worst way. With Jenova. She would come at him out of Aeris' final darkness, and be grinning that devilish grin, pointed teeth revealed beneath frozen-blue lips peeled back too far. She would shriek and yell her in her inhuman way, and it always reduced him to nothing before her...

This time, they ended differently, though. Usually he would fall under Jenova's piercing gaze, and her biting words, fall into a glowing green mass of the planet's life energy, and wake in a cold sweat. This time, out of the icy darkness he felt two warm hands on his shoulders...

-

He opened his eyes to see a dark shape bending over him, and gave a quiet yell, and batted the figure's arms away.

Vincent, taken slightly by surprise, flinched back, offsetting his fragile balance over Cloud, and sending him to his butt on the ground a few feet away. His eyes were wide with worry as he beheld the blonde, leaning over in bed slightly, and apparently hyperventilating. He opened his mouth to speak, but decided against it, in favor of just giving the boy time to recuperate... he understood why it might be a shock to wake up and see him bending over you.

In a moment, Cloud swallowed the lump of fear in his throat at being woken up in such a way, and looked up. For a moment, he seemed puzzled, and quickly tried to regain his composure, slicking a beading of sweat off his forehead, and over his slightly flattened spikes. "Er... Vincent..." he muttered, looking away from the intense red gaze of the other, "What... what are you doing here?"

"Waking you from a nightmare." the gunman replied, poetically as always, "And thus returning a favor you did for me a long, long time ago,"

Cloud almost smiled. "Yeah, uh... thanks." he sighed, "Sorry, I just... you can expect I'm a little frazzled."

Vincent nodded, "I understand." his leader once again sighed. And the two passed a few moments in silence.

In this time, Cloud idly observed that he'd never seen Vincent without his headband on... or his cape... and as his eyes continued downwards, he artfully hid a smirk upon coming over the man's feet. Or his boots. He looked downright ordinary. _Well, not quite._ he thought as his gaze was drawn up to those glowing red-coals of eyes... but certainly less dark and dramatic when he didn't have a big billowing shroud following him everywhere.

"If you would like, I can leave." Vincent said. He'd been meaning to anyway, finding no more real reason to stay now that Cloud was up.

"No, please." Cloud waved the offer off, "Stay." he asked quietly. "It'll help keep me up... I never have good dreams after I wake up from nightmares. I usually just prefer to stay up all the rest of the night, and a little conversation can help me do that."

Vincent allowed himself to smile. This was good... he'd been wanting to talk to Cloud anyway for some time now. He settled back down from where he'd been beginning to get up, and crossed his legs so that he was sitting more comfortably.

"I hope you don't mind. I'm kind of imposing on you." Cloud said sheepishly. And Vincent idly raised a hand off from where it was resting on his knee, and shook his head.

"Think nothing of it. I can do with a little less sleep."

The mercenary nervously chuckled, and looked back down at his wreck of a sleeping area, halfheartedly attempting to pull the blankets and pillows around him back into some semblance of order. "Pardon me again, if this is too personal a question..." he began, "...but what were your dreams like?"

Vincent laughed bitterly, "Oh... them..."

Cloud watched him intently as he appeared to concentrate, or try and remember. This had been a thing plaguing his not-easily-sated curiosity for a long time. Vincent often spoke about having nightmares, but never spoke _of_ them.

The gunman sighed, and leaned back, turning his eyes to the low ceiling of the little tent, "I still have them sometimes..." he started, "...but not quite so often as when I was in the coffin. And that's to be fairly expected. I don't suppose they're much like yours... often they take the forms of my demons, Chaos only being a recent addition, seeing as he was not yet a part of me while I was in the basement of the mansion..."

The ex-Soldier nodded silently, while allowing Vincent to continue his description.

"Simple things, you know. The types of dreams you hear about constantly. Flying or falling, often the latter... being chased. Galian liked to track me through the mountains, Gigas through the jungle... Hellmasker would always just assault me at random, unexpected moments." his eyes glittered almost in amusement at the different personalities and preferences of his own different forms.

He continued still, "And sometimes... sometimes I see _her_." Vincent emphasized that last syllable in such a way... even Cloud could sense the emotion that a simple pronoun sent running through Vincent's body. Of course, he knew who the man was talking about.

"It's usually... her death. Her dying... her..." Vincent trailed off, unwilling to say anymore, this fact made obvious by the pained expression visible on his pale features, that the mercenary could just barely make out because of his mako-glowing eyes in the darkness.

"It's okay." he reassured him, a hand instinctively sliding out towards him as if he meant to comfort the man, but it stopped halfway there after Cloud realized that it would probably do the gunman no good, that, or Vincent might possibly be insulted by the notion that someone thought he needed comforting. Or maybe just that Vincent was sitting across the tent from him, and he couldn't reach. Instead, he just finished his statement, "You don't have to go on, if you don't want..."

Vincent shook his head, a pained smile flattening out the frown on his lips, "No, that's all right..." he looked wistfully up at the far upper corner of the tent again, "...because sometimes it's her. It's just that, just her... and nothing bad happens." this thought seemed to calm the recently somewhat-distressed ex-Turk, and he leaned back into a more relaxed position again.

Cloud let out a breath of relief at that. "That's like..." he began, looking at the rumpled sheets, "...that's just like... I see Aeris." he said, turning his eyes toward Vincent again, "Sometimes it's her death... sometimes it's just her, as kind, gentle, and... beautiful as always." a mournful tone was in his speech.

Vincent looked over at him, cocking his head to one side for a moment, and sending his slightly tangled black hair into his face as he took in the swordsman's shape, and pondered him for a moment. Cloud's hand twitched uneasily under that penetrating stare, until he finally got up the courage to ask, a few minutes later, "What...?"

"We are not so unalike, Strife, you and I..." he said, "One would not think it if they merely looked at us, but it's true."

Cloud received this statement blankly for a moment, then his eyebrows creased as he really thought about it, and slowly his pink lips just pursed slightly into a smile. "Yeah... I see your point... I think you're right."

Vincent's eyes narrowed gladly, relieved that he was understood. It was a rather strange statement... and anywhere else it would've been met with questioning stares, if not outright vocal opposition, especially from Cloud. But something was different about Cloud tonight, he thought as he watched him out of the corner of his eye. Partly due to the nightmares, no doubt, but maybe it was the situation as well... he was not a leader right now, so he was not hiding his own emotions for the betterment of the rest of the group. The ex-Soldier was practically laid bare... but why for him? Vincent wondered... surely, when he thought of the other people in AVALANCHE, he was sure that, to most of them, at least, Cloud would not speak this way, or this much.

The answer was quite obvious, however... none of them had woken him up, and none of them, perhaps even including Tifa, seemed to share so many twisted coincidences with him. A silence fell over the two, wherein they were both sure that the other's thoughts were focused around the same thing... finding similarities between them.

"We're both ex-something affiliated with ShinRa." Cloud offered, looking up.

Vincent smirked at this. "We both have nightmares..." he said the obvious one, because he'd actually thought very little about how they were alike.

"...about some of the same things." Cloud added.

A short silence again, before Vincent mentioned, "We're both in AVALANCHE right now..."

Cloud nodded in confirmation, "All of the ones we love... killed by Sephiroth."

Vincent looked down. He'd never actually blamed the general for Lucrecia's death, but... he supposed that her death was a distant ripple of the circumstances of his birth. Then he wondered something else, yet again surveying Cloud carefully. He had said... 'all' of the ones they loved... but there were only two of them, he, and Cloud, so naturally there would be only two loved ones, one for each, Lucrecia and Aeris... but 'all'... 'all' implied more...

The somewhat confused gunman watched Cloud as the boy silently kept his eyes on the ground. He was very curious now, but... saw it best not to ask. The winds were easing up slightly, and the tent was much brighter than it had been before. Dawn must have been approaching. Cloud yawned, and sighed, then looked up.

Outside, Vincent had heard them too, a few footsteps... probably Tifa up and about, making breakfast or something. They were followed by a breathy yawn, and a fiery light passing by one of the walls: Nanaki's tail, no doubt.

Cloud turned his eyes to the ex-Turk, and smiled vaguely, "That's my cue..." he murmured, getting up, and grabbing his clothes from where they'd been discarded in a corner of the tent, pulling on the pants, and slipping off his T-shirt before pulling on the sleeveless turtleneck as well. He then turned around again, and headed for the door, stopping as he was just about to open it.

"Hey, Vincent..." Cloud started, his voice a little stronger than it had been earlier, no doubt because he was both more awake, and about to go and face the rest of the group.

Vincent looked up, "Yes?"

"Thankyou."

It was a simple two words from the ex-Soldier, seldom spoken, but it made Vincent smile again, as he left.

---

**Author's Ending Note Thingy:** Woot, a chapter where I'd had the idea for a long, long, long, long time. This was actually written waaay before most of the rest of the story was, because this part stood out most to me... well, onto the next chapter! Which, by the way, is most likely not going to be the one that chronologically comes after this one.


	6. Waking World

It was dark, and bitter cold one night, up at the Northern Crater. The AVALANCHE group had started out on their descent too late, and gotten stuck after a particularly steep slope. And with other circumstances, of course, they'd been trapped, unable to get back up the Highwind for the night. So grudgingly, they set up tents amidst the rocky, uneven soil, and swiftly dropping temperatures.

They had only briefly convened over a flickering campfire, gathering together covered in blankets, winter coats and hats, or cloaks if they were not lucky enough to have fur, or be unaffected by temperature like Nanaki and Cait Sith. However, most soon abandoned the warmth of the flames for the promising ability to be able to bury themselves in blankets inside their individual tents, which at the very least kept out the wind and snow.

Vincent idly wondered if the weak metal frames would hold up to the weight of the snow if it gathered overnight. He was bedding down, still wrapped in his crimson cloak for the night, unwilling to take it off because of the cold, when he looked up.

The fire was still burning outside, and it cast a shadow of someone standing in front of his tent. Instinctively, his hand moved for his gun, which lay carefully on the floor next to him. The silhouette bent down, and reached for the zipper on his tent. His fist clenched around the handle. The door slowly opened, and a familiar spiky head poked in. His grip loosened and he let go of the gun.

"Hey, Vincent..." Cloud murmured, standing there, watching the gunman unsurely. "Can I... come in?" he glanced back outside as a gust of wind nearly knocked him off his feet and blew quite a bit of snow inside.

"Sure." Vincent said simply, beckoning the swordsman inside with his claw hand, because the human one was embedding itself beneath the warmth of the sheets.

Cloud gladly stumbled in, and closed the door behind him, clumsily taking off his snow covered boots. He sat down in the far corner of the tent, Vincent realized, exactly where _he_ had sat on the last nighttime visit the between the two, not long ago.

The ex-Turk watched him closely for quite a time, for the boy was still silent. He had been this way alot recently, probably because of the imminent confrontation with Sephiroth, and some raging emotions this brought up within him.

Cloud was, however, the first to speak, "You remember the last time we did this?" he said with a wry smile.

Vincent too smirked, and nodded, "Yes..."

"Well..." Cloud began, "...I think I... wasn't completely honest when we were talking about our similarities. I left a few out." he reported.

Vincent quirked his head to one side a little bit, and continued to watch expectantly in silence.

"I never told you... about what happened to me in Nibelheim when I returned there with Sephiroth." he said, now also watching the gunman, "It was me, Sephiroth, and Zack... you know about him?"

The ex-Turk nodded in confirmation, and Cloud continued.

"He... I... we..." Cloud babbled, looked down, then back to Vincent, his expression very grave and serious "Nobody else knows this, so..."

He nodded again, "I understand, I won't tell a soul..."

Cloud didn't really distrust the man, but still watched him skeptically for a moment. Vincent stared blandly back, repeating again, "Your secret's safe with me, Strife... I swear it won't leave these walls." said walls shook violently as a sudden gust of wind howled outside.

This seemed to be enough for the swordsman, and he sighed in that way one would if they were about to unwillingly divulge information... just as Cloud was. "Zack and I... we were..." he sighed again, knitting his fingers together, almost as if hoping this silent gesture would be enough to get the idea across, then added anyway, "...involved."

Vincent raised an eyebrow, "Zack...? But, I thought you and Sephiroth..."

Cloud looked up suddenly, seemingly appalled, "No!" he said a little too loudly, "No, Sephiroth was just an idol." he frowned, and looked off at one of the side walls of the tent... the one facing the center of the crater, and the aforementioned general. "But Zack..." he started again.

"After Sephiroth destroyed Nibelheim, and Zack and I were left for dead up in the reactor." he stopped, then took a breath, "Do you know where I woke up?" Cloud asked, eyeing the gunman, who slowly shook his head.

"The basement of ShinRa mansion." The ex-Turk's eyes widened slightly, but Cloud continued before he could speak, "Floating in one of the two liquid-mako capsules. Zack was in the one next to me and..." he stopped to look pointedly at the gunman, before continuing bitterly, "...it was Hojo who was in control of us."

Vincent grit his teeth, and clenched his fist, feeling the renewed anger for the scientist. Oh, he was so glad the man was dead.

"Five years he had us in there... I'm not exactly sure what he did to us, I was unconscious for the better part of the whole time." Cloud admitted, looking away.

"Why are you telling me this now?" Vincent finally queried, his voice soft and undemanding, "But specifically, why now, and why me?"

"Why now?" Cloud looked up, "Because it's something I've been needing to get off my chest. It's not a good feeling keeping shit like this from the rest of the party." he sighed frustratedly, "And this is sort of my last chance to do it... after all, if we don't..." he trailed off, looking to that same wall which pointed the way to the crater, "...make it out of here... then the secret goes with me to the grave. I just thought someone needed to know the real reason why I was doing this."

"So then, why me...?" said Vincent after a long silence.

Cloud seemed to think about this for a long, long moment, before answering, his eyes half mast, and his mouth curved into a thoughtful frown, "Because I trust you most. Out of anyone."

This information seemed to, yet again, like so much else had already that night, take the ex-Turk by surprise, though little of it's true impact was evident on his face besides the slight raising of eyebrows.

"Honestly, though..." Cloud continued, "...just think about who else we're talking about here. Nanaki is an... animal. He wouldn't understand... Cait Sith is a robot, so likewise. Yuffie would blab to everyone, Cid and Barret would probably smack me for being an idiot, and Tifa? Well, let's just not go there..." he finished.

"I see your point." Vincent admitted, slightly disheartened, "So I was the most trustworthy by process of elimination, then."

"No, it's not that either." Cloud quickly corrected, "It's like before. We have more in common that meets the eye... and because of our little talk last time, I thought you had more of a right than any to hear my big secret."

Vincent smiled again after that, "Thank you, Strife." he said.

"It was my pleasure." the swordsman said, returning the man's smile with his own nervous grin, "But we've all got a big day tomorrow..." he heaved a shuddering sigh, "I'll let you get your sleep, and try desperately myself to get some of my own." The gunman nodded, and stood up, making his way to the door while the mercenary pulled on his boots.

"Everything's going to go right tomorrow." the ex-Turk followed up with a moment later, only just sensing the extent of Cloud's worry as the boy slowly stood up, and looked him in the eye with a questioning expression.

"You said, pretty much when I first met you, that you wouldn't be the one to offer me any words of comfort..." he mentioned.

_Ah, what a good memory he has..._ Vincent thought bitterly, himself too now remembering those harsh words he'd uttered, without even knowing what kind of a person he was talking to, "Then I'm afraid I made a misjudgment then... even now, though, it's not comfort, it's fact. Or at least you have to think of it that way, or else something horrible really will happen."

Cloud slowly nodded, glancing at the door, which Vincent then began to zip open. As the boy stepped out, the gunman said one more thing.

"Everyone's with you."

It was a simple phrase he had heard various people say many, many times, and usually he just preferred to remain silent, because he couldn't accept that they were if he himself didn't even trust them enough as their leader to give up the real truth about himself. But right now, he quickly turned around amidst the growing blizzard, slowly smiled, and replied.

"You're with me."

Vincent was left standing confusedly in the open door of a tent, letting the cold air in, as Cloud trudged off through the deepening snow towards where he'd set up, across the campsite from him.

---

**Author's Ending Note Thingy:** Oh, oh, oh! The slashyness! XD I can't stand it! I hope you could... I'm really, _really_ trying to develop this relationship slowly, and in a semi-canon sort of way... as in, nobody had sex during the course of the game, so nobody will have sex in the parts of my fanfiction that take place during the game. Yet another chapter written totally out of order! I swear, this fic is NOT coming to me in a linear fashion, just in pieces... I hope it all fits together well enough when it's finished, or else I'm gonna just have a story collection, not really a fanfic... This one didn't go exactly as planned, I didn't capture the same feel that I wanted to... at least not early enough. I think it's there, just too little too late. Ah well. Hope you enjoyed!


	7. Left Behind

Somehow, Vincent always knew he couldn't protect Cloud forever. He had given it his best from the boy's tender childhood to his adulthood, always being there to give council, aid, and strength. But he couldn't help but feel slightly shorthanded when, right after the fall of Sephiroth, the mercenary ditched him.

He left them all. For where, nobody really knew... he just disappeared one day. They would've searched the world over if it were not for a final message he left on Tifa's phone, that he was gone, and did not want to be found, and did not want to return for quite a while.

Eventually, he did return, though. Settled down with Tifa, who was taking care of Marlene, and an orphaned boy from Midgar. This was the last Vincent had heard happened, though he suspected more after this... because when he dropped by for a single visit a little later, Cloud was already again gone.

"I don't know where he thinks he's going, or for what reason..." Tifa said testily the morning after the night when Vincent arrived, and the morning before he decided he was leaving, since the swordsman wasn't even there.

"I do." he idly responded, though, while staring somewhat hungrily at the eggs Tifa was frying. He'd gotten to Edge from ShinRa mansion, his current temporary residence, in record time, but had done so by forgoing meals and such along the way. "He's doing what I did after Lucrecia died."

Tifa turned, watching Vincent curiously for a moment, before looking back at the stove, and flipping her eggs, "That can't be it, Vincent..."

"Why not?" asked the gunman, "It makes perfect sense... someone he loved died," the girl cringed ever-so-slightly at that, a motion that didn't go undetected by the gunman's trained eyes, "And he's blaming himself for it. He's unable to face the world while he's still laboring under that guilt, so he's trying to just... get away from it. It's the same reason why I hid in my coffin."

"But I don't understand..." Tifa continued, flipping the eggs again, while Vincent tried to keep his mouth from watering. He really wished she'd hurry up. "...we've already avenged Aeris, just like you avenged Lucrecia by killing Hojo, and here you are today!" she exclaimed, turning around, pan and spatula in hand, before dumping the eggs onto his waiting plate. "What's still keeping him away from home...?" she mused, more to herself now than to him.

Vincent picked up a fork, and bent over his plate, turning his concentration on feeding himself, rather than answering the question. _Because he's still doing exactly what I am... what I've done by returning to ShinRa mansion._ he stopped at that thought, chewing a piece of the eggwhite with a furrowed brow and a frown, remembering the letter sent to him by Tseng, the leader of the Turks. It basically stated that since ShinRa still existed, and was planning to rebuild itself to its former glory, which included fixing up and reinhabiting long abandoned stations, such as the mansion, Vincent would have to leave it within just a few months.

"Don't worry, Tifa, Strife doesn't have much common sense, but he's observant... he'll come around." he unwillingly offered her the words of slight comfort, though he wasn't paying much attention to her anymore anyway. She merely shrugged before continuing to go about her business.

He looked back down, and ate another bite of egg. _Revenge is only half of what needs to be done to solve this kind of heartache..._ he glanced at Tifa as she searched the shelves for some cereal, which she'd be sure the children would be asking for as soon as they got up, _...when someone strikes you as deeply and strongly, and leaves you as suddenly and sorrowfully as Aeris or Lucrecia did, there is no simple moving on after revenge. You need a replacement. Someone to fill that empty part of you that you didn't realize was there until you met them, and can't live with now that they're gone. That's what you used Aeris for, wasn't it Cloud?_

His eyes wandered to the refrigerator that Tifa was now getting milk out of, and the little stick-figure sketch of someone with a long sword, and an explosion of yellow crayon on his head, and he couldn't help but smirk, _Aeris filled the gap that Zack left... but you never got his revenge. That's why killing Hojo was so important to you at first, followed up by killing Sephiroth after Aeris' death._ he shook his head slowly, finishing up the breakfast, _You act like me to the last. Sometimes I really wonder..._

Vincent stood, pushing the stool up under the overhang of the counter, and holding his empty plate out, "I'm afraid that I'll have to be going now, Tifa." he said softly.

"Oh..." murmured the girl, "...you can't stay a little longer? You just arrived last night..." she followed this up with a quiet, nervous giggle.

"I'm sorry," he simply said, bobbing his head in a gesture of goodbye.

"You know, he could still arrive later on... or tomorrow, or not long from now." she tried, desperate for company other than the two children, and, he was sure, the occasional visit from Barret to check in on Marlene.

"I can't."

With a sigh, she gave up, "All right. Be safe on your way back... I'll hope to hear from you?" she asked hopefully.

Vincent was already halfway out the door, his thoughts having put him in a bad state of mind. His only response was "Maybe."

-

ShinRa's notice about Vincent's eviction from the house proved to be the real deal, so he was only marginally surprised when they showed up at his door on the given date.

Sympathizing with him slightly, Tseng had offered to give him a free one-way ride to the destination of his choice, though he personally thought the Turks interest lay more in the field of getting him out without a gunfight than doing him a kind favor. So, then, after hearing that, the gunman finally decided that there was no more getting around it... even if Tifa wasn't, _he was_ going searching for Cloud, and he'd take his free ride to the only place he could possibly think to look: the Forest of the Ancients.

He was left on his own at the Bone Village, and from there ventured through the trees until coming out in the sadly familiar Forgotten Capital.

He felt a wave of relief at the sight of a darkly-clothed figure on the shores of the very lake that was Aeris' grave. Already on the approach towards this man, his heart skipped a beat, and he stopped when someone else came out of the shell-house nearby, and another, even. Who could Cloud possibly be with? And who _would_ he bring here anyway? On closer inspection, he found that none of them, in fact, were the sought-after swordsman.

In fact, he even noted that they all bore a disquieting resemblance to...

One uttered word from yards and yards away, just a passing breathy whisper on his lips: "Sephiroth..." but it proved enough.

Three silver heads whipped around, but the ex-Turk luckily had already hidden himself not daring even to breathe a sigh of relief. And they had his heightened senses to boot.

So Vincent took up his position of many years ago... observing and learning. He found out their names, their plan, and all the while, only one thought was in his head: _Dear Cetra, it's happening again._

He left the city at once, long after he learned all he ever cared to know, but remained in the forest. Three things kept him there: the knowledge that there was no way for him to get off the island, the desperate, and certainly unrealistic idea that if something started, perhaps he, all on his own, could stop it, and the possibility that Cloud might come through the forest one day, seeking Aeris' grave.

Sooner than he thought, things quieted down around the capital. The three had left, and that alone scared him. It meant something already had begun. When the helicopter passed overhead not a day later, he was sure of it, and that was even before the screams.

There were two of them. He couldn't ever get close enough to see, but always heard. And the three were always drilling their two captives. He knew the brothers' game already... Mother was Jenova, brother, just brother, was Sephiroth, and big brother was... Cloud.

Then they left to go find him. 'Big brother' that was. It took a lot of will, combined with better judgment to keep from shooting them right away, then and there. Instead, once the roar of their motorcycle engines had long since died away, he stepped out and looked at the two they'd left behind.

Tseng and Elena. He freed them, nursed them back to health, though that didn't take long with the help of a good Cure materia. He now felt he'd adequately repaid Tseng for the earlier favor the young leader had done for him. But the stubborn Turk insisted he owed Vincent once more. Another ride, perhaps?

He said he'd think about it, and so they trekked out to Bone Village, leaving Vincent with the knowledge that now the Turks would tell Cloud, and then Cloud would come.

Sure enough, it wasn't long before he heard a disturbance in his usually silent forest. And as always, where Cloud was, battle was. However, the gunman arrived only as the boy fell... Vincent was surprised to see this weakness in him... sure, he was fighting three against one, but these brothers weren't _particularly_ skilled. Only one moment's more observation, and the ex-Turk knew exactly why.

Things happened as they did before, all those long years ago on the road to Mt. Nibel. Vincent had to save him... even if it meant harming himself.

With an expertly placed shot, his own bullet knocked away Kadaj's sword, delaying the fatal blow to Cloud's neck as he brought the blade down. In another instant he put himself in the way of that one called 'Yazoo', taking a few bullets for Cloud… he paid them no mind.

-

Cloud felt only pain, from the blow that sent him crashing to the ground, and from the stigma's poison shooting through his arm. A bit lip, and a facefull of dirt later, he heard gunshots very near him.

In the fragments of seconds, he merely fell limply back and waited for the end... so he would be gunned down like Zack, only this time, not by ShinRa's goons, but by that damned Yazoo... yet no impact came. Instead, he looked up...

A lithe form was crouched above him, supporting itself over his body in an almost protective fashion. Around the black body, and through the red mist, he saw a flash of gold and a gleam of silver.

Suddenly, he felt a warmth by his face, and a sharp metal on his good arm... he felt himself pressed up against another's body, and the chill of wind through his hair as they rocketed up into the night sky.

Okay now, he was definitely dead... the painless gunshots, the red-winged angel carrying him off into the starlight heavens, either dead, or very, very delirious.

And then he got a good look at the face, pale skin through unruly black hair. Those features were unmistakable... yes, yes, then, he was dead.

In a quiet, unsure voice, the mercenary breathed, "Zack?"

The figure looked down, staring at Cloud with crimson eyes... oh, he realized his mistake now, so maybe he wasn't dead... but in those eyes... such worry and sadness and frustration. Then again… what did one expect of Vincent?

"No." he put flatly, turning back to look where he was going.

The meeting had been all to brief and broken for Vincent's tastes... though he did confirm that the poor boy suffered of the stigma, a rash of the Jenova cells that he himself had, by some grace of the Ancients, been exempt from.

As soon as Cloud had gone off on Fenrir, he followed the same path back to Bone Village, deciding to ask Tseng now for that favor.

---

**Author's Ending Note Thingy:** Well, that was hard to write... the hardest yet. YOU try summing up the entire plot (mostly) of Advent Children from Vincent's perspective in a decent, non-boring amount of time... XD

P.S. Next chapter was a late edition to the story... written after the chapters that came after it (confusing, I know) but chronologically it fits into the timeline of this fic. Yay!


	8. Eye of the Storm

**Author's Beginning Note Thingy:** YAY! Yay for thirty reviews, and yay for my owning Dirge of Cerberus, and finally being able to play some! And you know what that means... more canon material for me to screw with! So here, at long last, is another chapter!

Maybe if I have time/am feeling creative, I'll even draw a happy little Vin/Cloud pic to upload and send a link of to all of you.

---

His body ached all over in a way it never had before...

...well, that was a lie. It had hurt like this back in Hojo's lab, but that was long ago, and the pain had been dulled by the sedation of tranquilizing drugs and the passage of time. It too had fuzzed the vivid outlines of that world.

This pain was fresh, and new. Caused in part to the numerous piercing bullet wounds that had been haphazardly remedied by guzzling down a potion, and also in part to the quick succession of his more than strenuous tasks.

Yes, strenuous was an understatement. With regard to the battles three years ago, and even just last year, comparatively they moved at a snail's pace... and were relatively tame. Almost like a children's game, allowing time for rest, time to let the characters take a moment to stop and try to understand.

Right now, Vincent was feeling the strain. He'd been thrown into the middle of a thickening mess, and didn't have the faintest idea what was happening or why. Nevertheless, he had to plow on as if there might be some purpose to his toils at the end of it all.

There probably would be... but at the moment he didn't see it. And it was beyond discouraging to have to face the things he did, and only have the situation perpetually worsen.

It didn't help that he was currently lost in a sewer.

Yes, lost. He'd been slogging around in this disgusting filmy water for hours and hours, and there was no light at the end of tunnel that _he_ could see. Just more strange-colored foam and plant-life growing up the walls. More mutated creatures to fight, more foul smells to breathe and annoying dripping sounds as water fell from unknown high sources and plopped into the pools at the bottom.

He was completely wet... His dark hair fell everywhere in tangled strings. His cape was heavy, and weighted him down each time he found a dry path on which to step out of the water. It caught on things as he passed by them, making him stumble and trip, and sometimes even fall head first, eyes open, into the disgusting liquid. He'd taste it in his mouth, inhale it into his lungs, and come up spluttering for air.

Then he'd frustratedly tossed his gun onto a nearby ledge, and reached over, the clawed fingers of his left hand grabbing onto a rusted bolt that stuck out of the granite. He dragged himself tiredly up onto the cold surface, and tumbled over onto his back, staring up at the dark ceiling, his chest heaving, panting for breath.

It was one of many times he just wanted to stop and give up... just... go back to sleep. What did he care anymore if the world would come to an end? He'd never been the one to save it before, that was always Cloud's job...

_Cloud..._

...he didn't need this moment to shine. He never wanted the limelight. Why was he the one being sent out to suffer through this awful torment? Hadn't he suffered enough? A bitter smile pulled back at his lips. Perhaps not. And who else would they send? Cloud didn't deserve to have to go through this… to be leader again. He'd never wanted that role either.

He shivered. The ground was hard. There wasn't an inch of him that was still dry, or warm. In fact, there wasn't an inch of him that had been dry or warm for days. Ever since Kalm. After the attack, it had begun to drizzle, and he, running around through the small city, trying to rid it of the soldiers that were capturing its inhabitants, had soon spent enough time in the mist as to be completely soaked by it.

Then in Edge it had positively poured... and thinking back, he realized the first thing that had completely overwhelmed him, that made him just want to give up and die... or perhaps maybe just sleep for another eternity, wake up in another world that was hopefully less painful than the last.

But he knew he couldn't do that.

Reeve had told him... about the inhabitants of Edge. Their proximity to Midgar meant nothing good for them, and he did worry... The gunman really had only one intention when he first set foot in the city.

_Cloud..._

But it was silent. Edge was completely, and utterly, eerily silent. That wasn't right.

-

He hastened through the familiar streets, dark and rainwashed, shooting down anything that moved and tried to block his path.

He remembered how fast his heart was beating when he burst through the doors of the Seventh Heaven. He remembered the hope he had, as his fingers closed around the little brass doorknob to the bar, that perhaps they would all be in here. Tifa, Cloud, Denzel, and Marlene, holed up in their little home... under siege, unable to leave because of the danger that surrounded. He hoped that he would be the knight in shining armor to stride gallantly in, and call for them to all follow him, and stay close, and they would be allright.

All those hopes were shattered at the continued silence within the building. At the incredibly vacant room that greeted him. He swallowed down sadness, and made his way to the counter, as if expecting Tifa to suddenly pop out from the little kitchen behind it, and greet him warmly, and offer him a meal on the house... just like old times. Just like nothing was wrong.

However he found something else behind the counter. A few little boxes lying neatly on the floor on the other side. Intrigued, he walked over to see, and knelt down for a closer look. Upon this inspection, he noticed that they came with a little note lying on the ground beneath them: 'Knew you'd come'

_Praise the Ancients, Tifa, I could kiss you..._ he thought to himself as he examined the things left behind. Bullets... why did she have them? But he wasn't complaining. They worked for his gun, which was good, he was getting low... and another potion. He heaved a sigh, and downed it. The pain from his many gashes and cuts, and the two bullets in his side had now at last reached him as the adrenaline of his knight-in-shining-armor fantasies wore off.

As soon as the miraculous liquid's healing had taken place, he stood again, and looked around. If there was a note, they knew he was coming. Maybe they were even still here... his eyes wandered to the stairs.

He bolted for them, running eagerly up to the hallway at the top, and looked around. Still vacant. And really, what good was it to let his hopes get that high? They were probably dead anyway...

_Dead? No..._ wait, what was he _thinking_! Cloud and Tifa dead? Couldn't be... he refused to believe it! Yet... they were so close to Midgar... and Deepground _was_ kidnapping people and... doing Kjata knows what to them.

In an attempt to put these horrible thoughts aside, Vincent sought out his very, very last hope. He strode confidently down the hallway to the door at the end. The door where Cloud's until-one-year-ago seldom-used room was. As he neared, he saw it wasn't even completely closed. Taking in a last breath in his anticipation, he finally pushed it, and it swung easily forward. Yet more emptiness was revealed.

Vincent felt his heart sink as he stepped in. The place really was a sight to behold... obviously left in a great hurry, there was no sign of struggle, however. That, at least, somewhat relieved him. Clothes were strewn about, the stand on which Cloud's sword normally rested had been knocked over, no doubt because of the swiftness with which the weapon had been pulled from it.

Still, he crept into the dark, almost like a child sneaking into a place he knew he really wasn't supposed to be. Closing the door with a soft click behind him, he stood there in the grey shadows, staring at the pale light that streamed through the window. He could practically see the shadows of the raindrops as they rushed by.

"Cloud..." he murmured out loud, looking around. He proceeded further in, and stooped to pick up some of the discarded articles of clothing: a pair of pants, a sock... bundling them in his arms, he lay them on the bed, next to a shirt that had been thrown there. Not just any shirt, though...

Vincent smiled as he took in the nostalgia of it... the old beaten up garment, faded and threadbare. The turtlenecked collar creased from where it had been folded over for so long. The blue fabric's purple-tinge so familiar to him. He slowly picked it up, examining it. There were small holes, mended gashes, and slight burns... it was a wonder Tifa had been able to wash all the bloodstains out.

After a moment of staring in the washed-out light, he bunched it together in his arms, and held it gently to his chest. Weakly, the man's body gave in, and he slumped over, his head coming to rest with a light squish on the pillow. So what if he got it wet? Cloud wouldn't be needing it any time soon.

He swallowed, and let his eyes slide closed. Now was no time to sleep, but... he was just so tired... tired of fighting, tired of hiding, tired of...

Then taking a deep breath, a scent equally familiar as the shirt was to his sight rejuvenated him: The soft, plain-old soapy shampoo Cloud used... unadorned by fake fruit scents or anything, just... soap. That, combined with the sour tinge of alcohol which came from living in a bar, and at last the faintest salt of sweat... and maybe even, knowing Cloud, tears.

And lying there in the dark he felt practically immersed in the young man's presence: the frail softness of the shirt that he was clutching to, the pale blue gleam of his eyes being mimicked by the light that flooded in the unshaded window, even the sweet smell of him... and he could almost hear his voice, saying something reassuring, urging him to go on, telling him that he could do it, though he doubted it, and didn't want to...

At the moment all he could do was absently listen to his own breathing and heartbeat, and pretend it was Cloud's. Yes... he was very good at pretending. He would lye there, as his body sunk lower into the mattress, as his breathing steadied, and try to convince himself that this was all some horrible dream, and that he would wake up...

-

And he did. And Vincent smiled bitterly at the concept that he had been dreaming about dreaming... and achingly sat back up and went on his way.

---

**Author's Ending Note Thingy:** Yay, really depressing chapter! Hope you all liked, possibly more DOC based ones later.


	9. Fall from Grace

Like a ball of violet fire, Chaos rocketed up into the night sky, past the mint flame of the behemoth that was Omega. In fact, when he reached the summit of his ascent, he placed himself right into its path.

_What's he doing...?_ raced through Cloud's mind, as wide confused eyes locked onto the sight, unable to look away. His heart was racing, his breathing quickened, and Chaos just hung there in midair, like a little marionette carrying out its own destiny at the Planet's whim.

_No..._ he thought, looking up at it, Omega continuing to ascend, _No, no, no! This can't happen! Vincent is... Vincent is in there, not just Chaos! That's his body going to die if-_ and it stopped right there. He'd said it, well, thought it, rather, but even that was bad enough. 'Die'. Vincent was going to die. After so much, and so long, here they were, at the brink of world destruction all over again...

...and the first time it was everyone's lives at stake. The second time it was solely his own, Cloud's, Cloud's life. And he didn't even need to accept the call to battle, but he did so because it was his duty. If he had chosen, he could have run away, left Sephiroth to be dealt with by someone else. He didn't doubt that they could've won...

...but this was different. Chaos and Omega were beings of the planet, born only to enact the parts they'd been assigned eons and eons ago. Vincent was just... along for the ride. The world was going to end, millions of lives would just... cease if someone did not stop it. And this time, that someone was Vincent. And in order to stop it, Vincent needed to die.

And up above, miles above the surface of the planet, Chaos' wings furled, wrapping around itself, and he began to plummet down, down, down towards the soil. Towards Omega. Towards his own sacrifice.

There was an explosion, a white light, and a chill wind sharper and brighter than anything Cloud had ever known. More terrible than drowning in the lifestream, more beautiful than Holy's shield, brighter than the light of the sun, and darker than the depths of the Northern Crater. A flurry of a million different extreme senses that made his mind sting dizzily, and his vision fade as he was flattened out against the ground with the gust of power that shot out and encircled the planet at their collision.

Slowly each one of them scraped their way up to their feet, Yuffie bounding up first, Tifa next, Shelke slowly rising. Cloud got up, standing erect with his head thrown back to see the sky... Cid, Reeve, and Barret followed a moment later. Red XIII hadn't even been knocked over at all.

The daylight glow slowly, slowly faded, the white light falling down like snowflakes, or like a million shooting stars from the moonlit sky. Omega was gone, Chaos was gone. Vincent was gone.

"Vincent..." Yuffie breathed, her eyes darting around the darkness in vain search of him. "Vincent...!"

As if on cue, a new color made itself known among the frost, that same vivid red-violet, drifting down like a fluid flame burning up the chunks of snow that dared come too near. It came slowly, almost reverently. Like the gentle wafting of a red cloak in the breeze, like the leather of a tattered wing, severed and bleeding.

"Vincent." Shelke stoically remarked, her eyes following the flame's descent with just as much rapture as everyone else's.

"No..." Cloud breathed, speaking at last.

"It can't be." Tifa shook her head disbelievingly.

There was a strange sort of feeling in the air. Apprehensive, yet calm... anticlimactic. A huge paradox. It was like birth... like a whole new world had begun, yet some remnant of the old world had, by pure chance alone, managed to make the crossing into this future. But looking around, Cloud could tell he was the only one among his companions who thought so. Already he could see the light of hope dying on their faces. Some had turned away, Tifa and Red, and Barret. They'd already given up on him. Tears were pooling on Yuffie's face, slowly falling over the curve of her high cheek bones. Shelke still looked on in what seemed to be cold indifference... but the swordsman new better. He knew that same look of hers all too well from looking into Vincent's eyes... but one way or another, the feeling all of their expressions conveyed was the same. Loss, sorrow...

"No..." Cloud shook his head quickly, sending his blonde spikes quavering atop his head. Tifa and Yuffie looked up. "I'm going to go find him." he said determinedly, taking a step forward toward the would-be landing sight of the purple fire.

"Cloud!" Yuffie turned to him, voice tear-choked, a mix between complete relief and hope, and complete distress and misery.

"I don't think..." Tifa piped up, glancing over her shoulder slowly, "...that there'll be much left to find."

At her comment, an oppressed hush fell over the entire group. Cid took a nervous drag of his cigarette, and anxiously fiddled with it in his hands after. Another sob came from Yuffie, at the same time that a stubborn, desperate determination took hold on Cloud, and he silently strode forth into the wreckage.

"Cloud!" Tifa called urgently after him, "Cloud, wait!"

But he didn't listen. Only two or three steps out into the winding path of twisted metal that now made up the Midgar streets, he broke into a run and was off like a shot in the dark.

The others watched as he left, did nothing, just watched. They'd all long since learned not to get in Cloud's way if he wanted something. The only thing they underestimated in this case was how much he wanted it...

-

The worst thing about the fall was the anticipation of hitting the ground. Wingless, and broken he fell, unable to do anything to stop himself. Alive, but not for long... and the agonizing moments rushed by like the current of air going past him, too fast, and too slow at the same time. Too fast, because there were so many things he had yet to do, as if he could do them now as he plummeted toward the earth... but either way, there was no time left. Too slow, because he would've much preferred a quick, clean death to this, which gave him the horrible chance to think out all the what ifs.

He saw only the blinding red light glimmering around him, and sometimes when it flickered so that it left some gap above him, he could see the dark sky, and the bright moon... and he almost smiled. As the ground came rushing up behind him, he somehow thought of the bright side: at least he'd saved the world.

Then came the worst part yet. With a clean snap, he hit the cold metal ground. For a moment, he was frozen in shock, eyes wide, arms and legs splayed out in all directions. His head spun, vision painfully fading in and out of blackness from the harsh impact with the floor, neck stinging with whiplash. He couldn't feel anything below the middle of his back, apart from the sensation of some cold liquid spreading and enveloping him.

So... his 'nearly indestructible' body had pulled through again, and in the worst way yet. As he lay there, head thrown back in a direction it shouldn't naturally go, he thought of what would happen now. He'd be stranded here, with his back broken and his neck snapped, and bleed to death while all his companions thought he was already dead from the fall, left, and built up some monument in his honor... but that was far in the future. Nevertheless, he'd probably be here for hours...

Closing his eyes he decided to just wait this out. Wouldn't be long now. Couldn't be much longer. If he was lucky, maybe the dreams would take him.

-

It was not proximity to the glowing red mass that made it's inner shape any more discernable... no normal human could have seen that from within the light. It was mako-cultured eyes that locked on the dark form within as it went falling... but it's descent was too rapid, and he couldn't run that fast. Cloud wasn't even sure what he expected to do, if he could get there in time... catch him? More like break his fall... then they'd both be injured, and then what? While he thought this, the light disappeared behind the twisted metal buildings of Midgar, effectively barring it from his sight.

With a new determination surging through him like a second wind, he picked up his pace and ran, ran full-tilt toward the 'ground zero' of the crash. His boots skidded across the dusty surface of the plate as he came to a halt near what should have been the spot... but he looked around wildly and saw nothing...

...then... something far off, just a tiny glint in the distance caught his eye. Walking quickly forward, he approached the little dangling metal thing...

A fine silver chain was knotted and tangled in itself, and hung over a curved hook torn from a fallen support beam. At the end of it dangled a very familiar little pendant... three fierce animalian heads came out the top, with an extended claw to the left, and wing to the right. The bottom curved down into a pawed foot, with another hanging chain for a tail. It sat there, swinging like a pendulum.

Disbelieving, Cloud's hand darted out and snatched up the little Cerberus, holding it closer to his face, confirming that it was the same one. If this was here... then where was Vincent? He looked up, glancing around, briefly surveying the area before moving on. "Vincent?" he called out, voice quavering with a kind of fear that sounded unnatural to him. "Vincent, where are you? I know you're here!" he tried to convince himself.

He suddenly caught site of something off in the distance, illuminated gently by the poisonous mako glow that fell all around in a circle, but never within the circle... like it had some kind of aversion to the ground within, which the ex-Soldier just realized throbbed with a faint purple... like the fire from the sky.

"Vincent!" his footsteps quickened to a run, and he came crashing through the light accumulation of glowing dust around the circle's edge. Inside, a dark shape lay sprawled against the pavement, a half-burned, half-torn red cloak was twisted around his broken body. One arm was thrown out to the side in a way it probably wasn't supposed to bend, and his neck was twisted painfully so that he couldn't imagine it _not_ being broken. "Oh Shiva, Vincent..." Cloud murmured, kneeling by him, his hands hovering just above the body of his friend... he didn't want to touch, just in case it would cause further injury... but...

Carefully he reached out, and rolled the man over on his back. A sudden, strangled cry escaped his throat, like the stifled, pained squeak of an animal. Tears welled up in his closed eyes, shining through the thick dark lashes, and, pitying, Cloud reached out and brushed them away with careful gloved fingers. The eyes opened.

Their usually powerful and piercing red glow was muted... faded so that it looked like they were bloodshot from crying, and he blinked a few times, as if he couldn't really see what was right there in front of him. And he couldn't... not very well. Everything was blurry, and he'd be damned if he didn't have a crack in his skull giving him this splitting headache, and probably impeding some of his brain functions... like sight... But the bright yellow chocobo-head was all he needed to know the man worriedly leaning over him.

An uncharacteristic smile came to Vincent's lips... but then... he was dying, why should he hide it? "Cloud..."

"Oh Shiva, Vincent..." Cloud repeated, looking him over. The man was... almost irreparably battered, it seemed. Blood was still pouring out of his head, one arm seemed to be both dislocated and broken, ribs were certainly cracked by the jagged way Vincent was breathing, and bones jutted out of his skin in some cases, at odd angles, visible through blood, and pierced leather clothes. "This looks really bad..." he was suddenly very aware of the other man's mortality... sure time couldn't kill him, the one force that inevitably killed everything else, except for Vincent... but battle could just as easily as it could kill any man. He was not immune to that.

The man groaned softly, partially at his own weakness. Ancients, it _hurt_. It hurt _so much_... he was so cold... and Cloud was right there, so close, if he could only just...

"Take me..." he slowly became aware of his voice speaking, "...I have to..."

"Shh." Cloud ordered, pressing a finger firmly to Vincent's bloodied lips, "I've got to help you, that comes first."

"Then _please_..." Vincent insisted, reaching up and grasping Cloud's wrist with his relatively un-damaged claw-hand. He had a promise to keep... promises to other people came before promises to himself. _So, Cloud..._ he thought bitterly, _...you'll have to wait. You might never know... but Shelke... I promised Shelke..._ "Take me... to Lucrecia's cave..."

-

Cloud watched with creased eyebrows and complete pity in his blue eyes. Vincent was so weak... he'd never seen him this weak, and yet... commanding. How could he deny this man, _this_ man especially, what could in all likelihood be his final wishes, but oh how Cloud wished they wouldn't be.

He slowly reached out, gingerly sliding his arms under the trembling man, and lifting him up off the ground. A few choked cries of pain came from Vincent, but for the most part he could do nothing but lie limply in Cloud's grasp. The swordsman worked the gunman's head onto his shoulder, and was sure to keep it there as he walked back toward his bike, avoiding the rest of the group at all costs.

It wasn't long before Vincent was propped up in front of him, Cloud sitting a little farther back than he normally would on his bike. He reached forward past the semi-conscious man to grip the handlebars and start the machine up. The ex-Turk jumped, startled at the first rumble of the engine, but soon settled back down, head still on the blonde's shoulder.

Cloud took note that his companion had already started to heal... the bloodflow had stopped, something which he was incredibly thankful for, and the protruding bones had seemed to slide back into place. He said nothing about how much his heart hurt after Vincent asked to be taken to Lucrecia... he asked no questions to Vincent, or to himself about why he was doing this? He knew what would happen... Vincent would hole himself up there in that little cave, spiral into depression, and never be seen by anyone again, but... that was what he... wanted. And so they roared off down the road.

-

"Don't think this is over, Valentine." Cloud said hoarsely as he lifted the sleeping Vincent into his arms and off the motorcycle again. The cool mist of the waterfall barring entry to Lucrecia's cave engulfed them for a moment, and then they came out the other side.

He carried the dark gunman over the dirty floor, past the glowing crystals that poked out from all odd angles, right to the very shore of the small spring, bubbling up from the cave earth here, and no doubt heavily mako-poisoned. It was here that he gently lay him down, sighing quietly by his side for a moment before he stood up. The warm glow of the light here gave the cave a peaceful ambience... but even he could feel that every rock was permeated with a deep-seated feeling of loss, mourning, and sorrow... he glanced back down at the sleeping man on the floor. This couldn't be good for him, but...

No questions asked, this is what Vincent wanted. He'd give him one year, though he imagined everybody else would give him much less. Vincent was stubborn, though, he wouldn't leave. _One year, and I'll come for you..._ Cloud thought to himself as he walked back out, making his way to his bike, looking back over his shoulder only once as he left, and resolved himself to stay away despite the longing, _...and on that day you'll leave with me, I swear it._

---

**Author's Ending Note Thingy:** By god, I've finally finished this chapter... and thus concludes the whole fic! Can you believe it? YAAAY! It's been so long since I've updated anything, I didn't think this would be the first fic I'd do... oh well, hopefully this will spur me into the other fics I have that much more desperately need updating.

Anyway, it's officially concluded, sorry for the out-of-order-ness, Dirge of Cerberus messed up my story... XD I couldn't stand for that, so I added two more chapters right in the center of things. Too bad, deal with it. There's a sequel coming! Not too sure when, but keep your eye out... or put me on author alert! winkwink.


	10. Leap of Faith

**Author's Beginning Note Thingy:** Mushy-gushyness ahead! I heard some say that it's not... but I myself find this chapter to have just a little too much reflective angsting (stupid Vincent). Oh well, it got done what it needed to get done... and if you agree with me, hang in there, you're almost at the end! The next chapter will offer a much more elegant version of mushy-gushyness with (Dun dun dun!) the date! (God, am I cliche or what?)

P.S. This chapter edited a few times because of the two chapters before it being added in retrospect. Please warn me of any possible discrepancies you might see... my heart wasn't really in it when I edited, I just wanted to get the new chappy up.

---

So, so much had passed since that night that Cloud had rescued Vincent after his fall from the heavens, a whole year, in fact, since he'd seen the blonde swordsman. The ShinRa mansion was still off-limits to him, and probably would remain so for as long as ShinRa was still around. So the gunman, not particularly wanting to become stranded on the northern continent again, instead took up residence very near the mansion, in the little mako-cave within the mountains. The very place that Cloud had brought him that fateful night... a whole year went by, and he hadn't left it.

It probably wasn't the best place for him, right then, in his conflicted state of mind... but the serene quiet and gentle glow of the lifestream there had always had a calming effect on him... as did Lucrecia. And now he had someone to talk to. Sort of...

Long days were spent leaning up against the base of the huge pillar on the far side of the cave, where Lucrecia was... his cellphone had long since run out of batteries as he sat there, just thinking. He didn't know why he'd come back here, after all that had changed...

Surely by now, Cloud knew... In retrospect, Vincent realized how maybe the mercenary had figured it out even before he himself had. All he knew was that Lucrecia or no Lucrecia, whether in his thoughts, in his dreams, or in person as she was just behind him... unlike previous times, when one thought about her slipped into his mind, it no longer dominated everything. Even when the gunman tried to focus his thoughts on her, he'd find himself wandering off, distracted, at times, by the thought of the mercenary...

He wanted nothing more than to get the ex-Soldier to cease his aimless wanderings. He knew how much the man must be hurting... he'd been through that before himself. He knew the anguish there was after each death, he knew the anticlimactic letdown after revenge was taken... it was as if he and Cloud had expected Lucrecia and Zack or Aeris to rise from their graves and personally thank them after the death of Hojo and Sephiroth... but no, obviously that never happened.

He knew all too well that crash after all the anticipation leading up to vengeance... the feeling of having nothing else to do. When their lives had revolved, for so long, around killing one individual, when anything and everything they did took them closer to that goal, what now, did they have left to strive for? There was nothing but emptiness and confusion. Lack of purpose. Vincent, after all, simply went back into hiding. Cloud had never been in hiding in the first place, and the gunman prayed to the planet that it didn't mean his self-created exile didn't last all the longer because of it.

He also prayed that someway, beyond all imagination, that the swordsman could heal... but yet again, he knew all too well what that would take. What he didn't know was whether or not the man was up to the task. He hoped desperately that Cloud was willing to let one more try to fill up the emptiness in his broken heart. That he had room left for another face and name. That he had the trust, still, to give his entire being over to this person for safekeeping, for the last time. And that he, Vincent Valentine, would be the one it was given to... because he would not betray him.

-

Meanwhile, Cloud was waiting, and the wait was horrible. He didn't know how he'd made it this long. He'd had three years on his own to think about what he felt... indeed, the man had realized a thing or two about Vincent before Vincent did, and that was part of the reason he had to get away... but only part.

It hadn't taken much, a couple realizations, a lot of reminiscing, and then, one final act had tipped the scales all over the edge, and in Vincent's favor. If only he knew it...

Cloud was always watching... he watched ShinRa mansion as a child, positive several times over that there was some manner of inhabitants in it... he watched Tifa leave town and nearly die falling off the unstable ropebridge... he watched Sephiroth's progress to insanity when he returned to Nibelheim, he watched his town destroyed, his friends and family murdered, he watched his lover be experimented on ruthlessly, and finally die to save him. He watched Aeris die, he watched Tifa hovering over him day and night while he was bound to a wheelchair...

It was how he was able to copy Zack's personality so accurately, it was how he was able to fabricate the lies of his past so well. It was how he knew exactly what to do and when in battle, and that same inactivity was what most often led to those who were close to him getting hurt. At the same time, though, it was what let him get closest to Vincent than he had been to anyone else before.

With the gunman, he knew the difference between a one beat pause, and a two beat pause in speech, he knew the difference between silence as Vincent glanced to the left, and silence as Vincent glanced to the right. He could see, almost sense without seeing every miniscule movement of his ruby eyes, he saw the slightest twitch of the man's human hand towards his gun whenever he was nervous.

And most of all, he practically knew what Vincent was thinking just by what he was looking at, and the way he was looking at it. More than telepathy, it was that behind his stoic mask of a face, the eyes that few seldom bothered to see into revealed absolutely everything...

It was during one key battle that Cloud learned the truth to the ex-Turk.

-

Bahamut was hovering in the sky over Midgar, and the city was as good as gone if someone didn't kill it. That someone was him.

He couldn't do it alone. He'd relied on the help of his companions to get him up to the creature so that he could destroy it. And he saw each of them carefully calculate their movements before they'd jumped, how much strength they'd need to get to him, how far down they'd have to fall for a landing. He saw Cid artfully swing his spear with just the perfect aim and timing, he saw Nanaki leap off the support beams of a building, and sink his fangs into a selected place on the fabric of his shirt, where he would not hurt Cloud, yet at the same time still be able to force him upward against the pull of gravity. He watched as Yuffie spun through the air and caught his foot before heaving it upward.

And he looked up. Far in the distance, he saw Tifa leaping, climbing, climbing, climbing farther up than he knew he could reach, even with the momentum Yuffie had given him. And then he knew why, as he saw the next step along the way...

He looked directly into the eyes of Vincent, and the man was looking directly at him. As he rose up toward him, he saw no wavering in the gunman's gaze, it was fixed wholly on him. The man knelt, hunched over on a ledge, simply watching the swordsman come nearer and nearer, and in his silence, he said everything...

_You can do this, don't be afraid, I trust you, do you trust me?_

And then, he jumped. He took a blind leap into the air, Cloud saw the silhouette of a body against the blue light of Bahamut's raw power, as it fell down, arms outstretched as if to embrace him. And still in Vincent's eyes he could see reflected, as he drew closer, no thought of where he was falling, or how far, not even a care if he would survive the landing, he saw only himself... as if he, Cloud Strife, were the only thing on the face of the planet right now that Vincent cared about...

...he couldn't let him do this. He couldn't let him blindly throw his life away as the others had done. He reached up, reached out, as if by taking this man's hand, he'd stop his descent. He felt the warmth of Vincent's skin touch his own, and in that split second there was the exchange of an enigmatic little smile, before he whirled around, and threw Cloud yet further up.

With the screams below, and the roar up ahead, and the air rushing past his ears, he still managed to make out one word: "Fly."

He hadn't the heart to look back. On Vincent's order, and on the faith that the gunman would correct the fatal angle of his fall, and with the inability to watch another loved one perish if he failed to do so, Cloud didn't look back.

-

Vincent had survived... he was too stubborn to die just yet, after living so long... But in that moment, every doubt, every care Cloud had in the world had been washed away in the sheer desire to save him, Cetra only knew how many times Vincent had done that favor for him in the past... he hadn't been keeping track, but he was positive that at that he currently owed his life, or at least his mental well being at least once to the ex-Turk.

When the battle was all over, Cloud remembered an old, old promise he'd made to himself, a sort of silent vow. He smiled at the thought... he had the money, he had the time, and he had the reason... now all he needed was the man. Two more years would come in his way... one spent with the world again in turmoil, Vincent caught right up in the middle... ၴhe second was more of a buffer that the two had silently agreed to. That they had taken to get their thoughts straight, and he didn't know about Vincent, but the swordsman had counted down every last moment of it until this day. This day, as he stood poised before the entrance of Lucrecia's cave, he got to see him again.

-

"Are you dreaming? Hey... are you dreaming?" Vincent looked up, craning his neck slowly, wary of possible pains from dozing off in an odd, upright position. He blearily blinked sleep from his eyes and tried to discern who was calling to him.

"Strife...?" he breathed, thinking he'd recognized the voice before he'd gotten an adequate view of the person.

"Yeah, that's right... you've been away so long, I would've thought you'd forgotten..." he said softly.

Vincent watched him curiously, as he drew closer, then shook his head, "No, I didn't forget, I just needed to..."

"What?" Cloud asked, "Vincent, you were always the one telling me not to hide, and look at you..."

The gunman hung his head shamefully, "I..." he began, "...needed some time to..."

"Oh, stop..." the swordsman said sternly, "...you've had all the time in the world, Vincent, to do whatever it is you needed to do. And honestly, if you insist on hiding somewhere, you could at least pick some place that's..." he looked up at the body of the woman the gunman loved, "...not so morbid." he finished, thinking of the man's first resting place, in the cob-web coated mausoleum of ShinRa mansion. Though in a way he silently thanked Vincent for staying here... appreciative that he hadn't had to search the world over for him, that he'd stayed right where he'd left him.

Vincent sighed, "I suppose you're right." he agreed. "But I can't even go back to ShinRa mansion anymore. Where was I supposed to go?"

"Tifa would've put you up ages ago, and you know it." he frowned.

"I wasn't particularly keen on living in a house with two relatively small children..." the gunman responded with a wince.

"True... part of the reason I was never there for long." he looked away. Vincent couldn't help but smirk.

"Or you could've come and stayed in the church with me." Cloud continued, "Or not even there, somewhere else. We could've gotten a cheap apartment together. Two people paying is better than one... I could supplement us with my delivery service and you could-..." he stopped, looking up at Vincent "...-do... whatever you could do..."

Vincent looked up hopefully, though as usual trying to mask it, "You would... do that for me? I know you've got a couple places you can choose from, but-" he was cut off.

"Actually, there's been something else I've been meaning to do for you..." Cloud mumbled with a sly smile.

To this, Vincent granted him a wary look... he'd seldom seen that expression on the swordsman's face, and whenever it was there, it usually didn't mean something good. "What...?" he asked cautiously.

"You'll have to get out of here to see." Cloud responded, and he began to answer back, before the blonde continued, holding a hand out for the gunman, "...and promise me... that you'll never come back."

At this, Vincent halted. He glanced back mournfully at Lucrecia... then something hit him.

-

He felt the wind push away, and dry off his tears as he fell down. What was Cloud doing? What was he thinking? Saving a city was noble, yes, but flying straight into the path of a fully-charged blast from Bahamut...? That was suicide to anyone!

...yet he understood. He'd been there before. When one fell, and fell and fell to the point of anguish where you still had the common sense to know that killing yourself was entirely stupid, but had no will left to keep on living. It was then that you did something daring like this, because after all... dying in a blaze of glory, to save the lives of others was not suicide, it was heroism. There was such a fine line...

But when he saw the look in Cloud's eyes, everything changed. At the same time, it seemed, both their attitudes switched. The man no longer wanted to die, he wanted to win, and Vincent no longer wanted to fight, he wanted to run. So he fell. He fell away from the growing power behind him, and fell towards Cloud.

But Cloud reached up. In that moment, where the ex-Turk had completely given up his long pursuit, the ex-Soldier had turned things around by simply reaching out to him, saying... _I want to stay. I've been running so long, don't you start running too._

And Vincent smiled. If that was what Cloud wanted... if he was sure he would live through this, and come for him again in the end... then he trusted him.

"Fly."

-

So that was why he left again... that was why his spirits fell. It had confused the gunman himself for the longest time, and now it only embarrassed him. After all Cloud had done for him, aiding him in his own battles, he had to pose this final test... he couldn't have just trusted Cloud, he had to really _see_ if the man would come and get him...

...and here he was. He did come after all. Vincent looked back at Lucrecia behind him, and remembered his own thoughts long ago, that had come to him while talking to Tifa: _...when someone strikes you as deeply and strongly, and leaves you as suddenly and sorrowfully as Aeris or Lucrecia did, there is no simple moving on after revenge. You need a replacement. Someone to fill that empty part of you that you didn't realize was there until you met them, and can't live with now that they're gone._

There was nothing he could do for Lucrecia anymore... and nothing she could do for him. And here was a living, breathing human being, yearning for his presence, and needing his company, for love, for living, forever, and his payment for coming along... perhaps, happiness? Happiness like he'd felt back when he and Lucrecia had done the same for one another.

Vincent looked down, barely smiled, and took Cloud's hand.


	11. Sparks Will Fly

Cloud pulled Vincent out of the waterfall, somewhat clumsily, though he didn't care that he'd gotten wet. Outside was waiting a gold chocobo, plumage shimmering in the light.

"I... wasn't sure I'd find you here..." he explained while tugging him along toward the bird, "...so I only brought one."

"That's all right." Vincent said, watching him get up on top of the animal, which didn't seem to mind at all. Once settled, he looked back down and held out a hand yet again, which the gunman smiled and took, getting himself seated carefully behind Cloud on the chocobo. It fluffed it's feathers slightly, and shook a little in protest to the extra unwanted weight, but when the blonde pulled the reigns, it started off at a slow trot.

They were fairly silent on the path through the mountains, Cloud carefully planning out his idea, Vincent content just to be where he was right now, out in the sun compared to the dim cave, and in such close proximity to... well, one of the ones he loved, but more importantly, the one who was _alive_.

When they turned off the path Vincent had expected them to take, and continued on through the mountains, he carefully surveyed the area, finding it quite foreign... he didn't know where he was. The ex-Turk slowly leaned forward, and glanced at the swordsman from over his shoulder, "Where are we going?" he quietly inquired.

"You'll see." Cloud answered, apparently quite pleased with himself and his secrecy.

Vincent merely sighed and shook his head, leaning back again... if the man was taking so much pleasure in leaving him in the dark, so be it... whatever they were doing, it couldn't be bad right? Right? When they finally emerged from the hills, and had moved across a small valley, a small town came into sight, nestled at the feet of another set of mountains on the other side. It appeared to be made of, tents and rubble, mostly.

"Corel?" the gunman questioned unsurely, "Why are we going here?"

"I said you'll see!" Cloud said stubbornly, "Stop asking questions… or else I'll slip up and tell you, and will ruin the surprise." Vincent frowned. He was not getting a good feeling at all out of how giddy the man seemed to be. It reminded him of the time when Cloud was still Zack. Not that it was bad that he was happy, but it was a side seldom seen in the ex-Soldier.

They tied up the chocobo outside of town, and walked in among the rubble along an all too familiar path to the only part of Corel that was decently intact: the Tram station.

"Oh, we're not..." Vincent hissed.

"We are." Cloud couldn't help but smile.

"You know I hate that place..." the gunman looked at the swordsman with what came closest, for him, to pleading eyes.

"No..." Cloud began, a slight frown creasing his brow, "...actually, I didn't."

Vincent sighed, and looked away, "This had better be good, Strife..." he grumbled, "I banned myself from the presence of Lucrecia forever, and my only reward is you taking me to the Gold Saucer?" Nevertheless, they were already getting on, and as the door shut, the chopping sound of the propellers started up.

"Well, if you don't like it, you don't have to ban yourself forever." came a slightly annoyed answer.

"I am a man of my word, Strife... I trusted your judgment, promised I'd never return, and it looks like I've been shortchanged." despite himself there was a slight amusement in his tone.

"Vincent?" came Cloud's voice again, as he turned from staring out the window at the ground, now far below, to look at the gunman, who likewise looked up and met the mercenary's eye.

"Yes?"

"It's been four years since we joined up on the quest for Sephiroth together, and in a way I've known you all my life..." he began, turning yet again to glance at the sun setting in the sky on the horizon out the window, "...would it kill ya to call me Cloud?"

Vincent merely blinked, then shook his head slowly, "Whatever you say." he agreed.

Cloud sighed somewhat frustratedly and leaned back. As far as he remembered, Vincent had only bothered to use his first name on one occasion... and that one occasion was while he was slightly drunk. Which of course led the ex-Soldier to believe that Vincent probably _didn't_ remember.

The sound of the propellers died down, and the two sat up, neither quite realizing that the short distance had been bridged so fast. The door slid open, and the two walked out into the brightly lit, multicolored complex that was the station of the Gold Saucer. And that same annoying song was blaring on repeat over the radios again: Da da da danana da da danana na na na nananananana... and so on and so forth...

"I hope you have GP and a member's pass, or else this will be a short and unpleasant visit." Vincent looked over at Cloud as they approached the woman standing by the entrance.

"Yeah, yeah, I have it. All of it." he frowned a little, flashing his Gold Ticket as he passed by, so that the woman who had come forward to ask for it, stopped, and went back to her spot. "Keep an open mind about this, Vincent, please…" he looked at him unblinkingly for a moment, before turning and leading the two of them into the main entrance, "Just trust me, you'll enjoy yourself."

Vincent sighed, but decided to give Cloud the benefit of the doubt. He didn't say anything more, a little apprehensive about perhaps treading on the man's confidence, or otherwise disheartening him.

The two jumped down the selected chute, and were spit out in a graveyard at the bottom of a long winding path toward a creaky mansion.

"Tell me we're not staying the night." Vincent protested, unable to help himself despite the fact that he realized he'd been doing a _lot_ of complaining.

"It's late already, and we haven't even done what I planned to get done yet." Cloud sighed, "Come on, I promise you'll like it." he murmured, obviously already faltering in his decision to come here.

The gunman was now silent. From so long being with him, he knew when the swordsman was beginning to second-guess himself. And despite the fact that he really _didn't_ have much faith Cloud's idea, he didn't want to not do it, at this point. He followed the man up to the inn. They got a room, and Cloud ran up there to drop off a few things he'd been carrying. Supplies, mainly, that he'd been reluctant to leave in Corel with the chocobo.

"All right." he came jogging back down the stairs, rubbing his hands together, determination apparently rejuvenated, "Now close your eyes."

Vincent paused. "...what?"

Cloud sighed, "Do I have to repeat it?"

"No... please... you can't be serious..." the gunman pleaded.

Silence was his only reply.

With a heavy sigh, Vincent squeezed his eyelids shut... only because Cloud was acting so... excited, was it? Excited and nervous. And more than that. As if he had the whole thing planned out in his head for weeks and weeks, and wanted it to go just as perfectly as he'd first envisioned it. He knew that feeling. That was perhaps the only reason he was complying with all of these ridiculous requests.

The gunman's body tensed nervously as he felt careful hands place themselves cautiously on his shoulders. "Allright, I'll lead you along, okay?" Cloud asked to confirm his cooperation.

"I don't have much of a choice." the ex-Turk murmured.

He felt his hair blown slightly as the mercenary sighed. They started off. Slowly, and carefully. Vincent shuffling his way down the winding path to the gravestones that would inevitably drop them into a long winding tube which would spit them out at the place of Cloud's choosing.

The closer they got, the faster the man was pushing him, faster than he'd have liked to go... But despite this, he soon got used to it... not a trip or a stumble, probably at least somewhat in part to his own excellent balance, but he preferred to think that it was just because of Cloud watching out for him. He hid a smile... he was returning that favor after all this time.

"We're going down now." he heard the man's voice from behind him. He left a hand on Vincent's back, while leaning forward and reaching out to touch the proper gravestone with the other. As usual, his heart jumped into his throat as they fell, but as usual, they landed on their feet at the bottom... wherever they were.

Cloud glanced at the Lady in the small booth. She opened her mouth to greet them, but he quickly pressed a finger to his lips. She blinked, glancing confusedly between him and Vincent, then slowly nodded. He walked the ex-Turk forward, and silently handed her the appropriate amount of money.

"This way..." he cooed softly, sliding him through a doorway, just barely without knocking him into it. "Sit down." he instructed, aligning the gunman with a chair near a window. As Vincent groped around blindly in an almost comical fashion, before sitting slowly on the seat he was not positive was actually there, Cloud settled down across from him.

"Cloud... May I, please?" Vincent asked, frowning pointing a finger towards his eyes.

"Not quite yet..." he responded.

The ex-Turk was about to sigh, when whatever room they were in took off moving, and a look of evident surprise came over his face, "Cloud... we're moving..." he mentioned, puzzled.

"Yeah, and you can almost open your eyes."

An explosion rang out like a gunshot right next to them, and the usually calm gunman jumped in his seat, grimacing, mostly in part to being deprived one of his senses. His look, and he didn't even need his eyes to say it, read 'What is going on?'

Cloud smirked... he'd put him out of his torture now. "You can open your eyes..."

Vincent gladly did as he was told, and began to speak, but his words were stolen away after another loud bang. His eyes wandered to the window, and he leaned forward to look out. The wide red irises were stained with a vivid purple as sparks flew through the dark sky.

"Fireworks..." he mumbled, almost disbelievingly. His eyes darted down to see the ground far below, as their little gondola moved along on the wire.

The swordsman nodded, "Yeah. Like Aeris and I saw four years ago. Like you said you and Lucrecia saw from Cosmo Canyon... thirty four years ago. I thought you deserved to get an updated version from up close."

There was no answer. The gunman merely looked out the window, his normally stoic and frown-creased face now holding the innocence of a child's as he took in the spectacular sights...

...from literally within the fireworks show, his pupils darted around to follow the blazing trails of orange that cut through the darkness, the dazzling reds that burned the sky, the glimmering showers of emerald sparks that fell down toward the ground like a fountain...

The two were entirely silent throughout the experience. Cloud's whole face resonated with a smile, as he watched the man in front of him, whose eyes were on the light, and the light alone, the little ember bursts within the shadows that popped and lit up everything they touched with a magically beautiful glow.

The gondola slowed, stopping just before the station where it came to rest again, parking itself before the grand finale. Rockets shot into the air, shimmering gold crackled in the sky. There wasn't an inch of night that wasn't illuminated by the end. The smoke settled heavy around the amusement park as they climbed out of their seats. Cloud followed Vincent as he walked over to the rail at the edge of the balcony by the station. His cloak billowed even in the very slight breeze, and he would not take his eyes off the last dying glow as still-flaming pieces of paper fell to the ground beneath.

As the darkness once more settled in, he turned around to face Cloud, reaching, taking, and gently squeezing his hand, while giving him a truly, genuine smile. "Thank you." he breathed, the phrase so saturated with deeper meaning...

"Aren't you glad now?" Cloud whispered, "Knowing what you could have missed?"

The smile spread a little wider, and he came closer, still holding tight to that hand. "Let's go."

---

**Author's Ending Note Thingy: **Written for you all on the 4th of July! I'm a little fireworks obsessive, in case nobody could tell, and there's no way I can accurately capture their amazingness… but I try.


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